Vijayendra failed to take dissident groups into confidence, says DV Sadananda Gowda
Bengaluru, Jan 25 (PTI): Senior BJP leader and former Karnataka Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Saturday said state president B Y Vijayendra had failed to take the dissident groups into confidence.
He also insisted upon a “transparent" election process to appoint the next president of the state who would replace the “ad hoc" president.
In the wake of growing dissidence, Gowda stressed a need for an overhaul in the saffron party.
“We must speak our heart out irrespective of whether people like it or not. The party should benefit from it," the former union minister said in a press conference.
Changing the core committee members is not a solution because that will not ensure the membership of good people, Gowda opined.
“What I feel is that the state president was appointed on an ad hoc basis. Official president will be appointed through the ongoing election process," he said.
“While discharging his duties, the state president has failed to take the dissident groups into confidence. Our failures are fodder for the media today," Gowda noted.
To a question, he said his focus was not on who should be the state president or district level president.
“Only a transparent election of the president will give strength to the party," the former union minister said.
According to him, groupism has spread its tentacles at the grassroot level, which should be treated first and other things come next.
Gowda’s statement dealt yet another blow to Vijayendra who is already under attack by the Vijayapura MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal and his faction comprising Gokak MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, former MLA Kumar Bangarappa and several others.
Patil is up in arms against Vijayendra and his father and former Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa. He has alleged that the father-son duo are corrupt and are into ‘adjustment politics’ with the ruling Congress.
Term ‘adjustment politics’, Patil means that there is a secret pact between Chief Minister Siddaramaiah led Congress government and the BJP state level leadership to cover up corruption cases against each other.
Also, former minister B Sriramulu threatened to quit the party owing to the allegation made in the core committee recently.
According to Sriramulu, he was told that he did little during the Sandur assembly bye-election leading to the party’s defeat at the hands of Congress candidate E Annapurna.
The party is also losing its grip in Ballari, which has been its stranglehold for more than two decades, BJP sources said.
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Wangchuk not given videos which formed basis of his detention: Wife to SC
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New Delhi (PTI): Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk's wife Gitanjali J Angmo alleged in the Supreme Court on Thursday that four videos which formed the basis of her husband's detention were not shown to him and only the thumbnails on pen drive were displayed.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing in the court for Angmo, told a bench of justices Aravind Kumar and Prasanna B Varale that not supplying the videos violated Wangchuk's right to effective representation before the advisory board as well as the government.
"It is now alleged by the State that that DIG came with a laptop and shown four videos. The laptop was provided to detenue on October 5, 2025, but those four vidoes were not there.
"Let us assume they showed it to be, that is not the requirement of law. The requirement is to give it to me. They have to provide the document, I don't have to ask. It is there constitutional duty to supply. We have said that time and again that the four was never supplied," Sibal said.
Another lawyer assisting Sibal informed the court that the pen drive was inserted in the laptop before Wangchuk and he only saw the thumbnails.
"The videos were not actually played. None of the thumbnails were actually clicked," the lawyer said.
Additional Solicitor General KM Nataraj submitted that there is a video in which the conversation with the DIG and detenue will show everything.
The top court said it see the relevant video recordings, including a 40-minute video of the interaction between police officials and the detenue.
The matter is now posted for hearing on February 23.
On Monday, the apex court had questioned the Centre about the transcripts of videos submitted by it against Wangchuk and said the translations should be precise in the age of artificial intelligence.
It had told Nataraj that it wanted actual transcripts of Wangchuk's statements from the government after Sibal submitted that some of the words attributed to the activist were never said by him.
The top court was hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by Wangchuk's wife, Gitanjali Angmo, seeking a declaration that his detention under the National Security Act (NSA), 1980, is illegal.
The NSA empowers the Centre and the states to detain individuals to prevent them from acting in a manner "prejudicial to the defence of India."
The maximum detention period is 12 months, though it can be revoked earlier. Angmo said the violence in Leh on September 24 last year cannot be attributed in any manner to the actions or statements of Wangchuk.
Wangchuk himself condemned the violence through his social media handles and categorically said it would lead to the failure of Ladakh's "tapasya" and its peaceful pursuit of five years, Angmo said, adding that it was the saddest day of his life.
