Yediyurappa says his son Vijayendra has capacity to contest election from anywhere
Bengaluru, Jul 23: Former Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa on Saturday said his son and BJP state vice-president B Y Vijayendra has the strength and capacity to win an election from anywhere but the final call has to be taken by the party high command.
Yediyurappa, who is an eight-time MLA from Shikaripura assembly constituency in Shivamogga, said he will not contest the next assembly election but would 'suggest' the party high command to field his son.
During a programme in Shivamogga on Friday, the Lingayat strongman said he would not contest the next election but would field his son.
The BJP stalwart reiterated what he said the previous day.
"Vijayendra is ready to contest whichever place the party high command asks him to contest. By the grace of God, he has the strength to win from every place and has built his personality accordingly. However, the final decision will be of the Prime Minister. I can only give a suggestion. We will stick to his (PM's) decision," Yediyurappa told reporters on Saturday.
According to him, during a programme the party workers had put pressure on him to contest from Shikaripura again but he declined and proposed his son's name as the contestant from the BJP in his constituency for next year's polls.
"I told my party workers that I will not fight the next election but I will ask Vijayendra to contest the poll," the veteran BJP leader said.
The former chief minister said there was pressure put on him on a daily basis to field Vijayendra from Mysuru or Chamarajanagar district.
BJP insiders said Vijayendra had played a crucial role during the KR Pet assembly bypoll and helped the party win from the seat for the first time in the Vokkaliga bastion.
Yediyurappa hails from Bookanakere in KR Pet constituency in Mandya district but the party could never win the election from there.
In July 2019, K C Narayana Gowda, who is now a minister in the Basavaraj Bommai government defected from Janata Dal (Secular), resigned from the assembly, contested the by-election on the BJP ticket from KR Pet and won the seat.
Vijayendra had also desired to contest from Varuna constituency in Mysuru in 2018 on the BJP ticket when Congress stalwart Siddaramaiah vacated his seat for his son S Yathindra to contest as a Congress candidate. However, the BJP leadership did not entertain his wish.
The other son of Yediyurappa, B Y Raghavendra is an MP from Shimoga Lok Sabha constituency.
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Sheikh Hasina should be allowed to stay in India as long as she wants: Mani Shankar Aiyar
Kolkata, Jan 12: Former career diplomat, ex-union minister and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said that deposed Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina should be allowed to stay in India as long as she wants.
Expressing happiness that Indian foreign secretary Vikram Misri went to Dhaka last month and held discussions with the authorities there, Aiyar told PTI on the sidelines of the 16th Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival that the talks should be continuous and New Delhi needs to establish ministerial contacts with the interim government of Bangladesh.
About demands by Bangladesh to extradite Hasina, he said, "I hope we will never disagree that Sheikh Hasina has done a lot of good for us. I am glad she was given refuge. I think we should be her host as long as she wants, even if it is for all her life."
Hasina, 77, has been living in India since August 5 when she fled Bangladesh following a massive student-led protest that toppled her 16-year regime.
The Congress leader said that it is true that minority Hindus in Bangladesh are being attacked, but mostly it is because they are supporters of Hasina.
“They (reports about attacks on Hindus) are true but exaggerated because many of the conflicts are more about settlement of political differences," he said on Saturday.
Earlier during a question hour session, Aiyar said that Pakistanis are much like Indians, but only the accident of partition made them a different country.
“There exists much more difference in me as a Tamil and my wife as a Punjabi, than between her and a Pakistani Punjabi,” he said.
Taking a jibe at the Narendra Modi regime, the Congress leader claimed, “We have the courage to undertake surgical strike but this government does not have the courage to sit across the table with them."
Pakistan is a country which "spreads terror but it is also a victim of terror', Aiyar said.
"They (Pakistan) thought they could bring Taliban to power in Afghanistan, (but) today their single biggest threat is the Taliban in Afghanistan," he said.
In a compliment to former prime minister Manmohan Singh, Aiyar said his single biggest achievement was to ensure that India talked to Pakistan on the back channel on what Gen Musharraf called the four-point agreement on Kashmir.
Singh also showed that it is possible to talk business with a military government, he said.
"It is suicidal for us to continue wearing Pakistan around our neck like the albatross. We should just talk to them as Manmohan Singh showed on the issue of Kashmir,” he said.
Aiyar took part in a discussion on his recent book where he touched on issues like his relation with the Gandhi family, his tryst with the Congress party, his stint in the days at Cambridge and his commentary on the present situation in the country.
