The eight-day tussle within the Karnataka unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ended on Wednesday after D V Sadananda Gowda was chosen to replace B S Yeddyurappa as state chief minister. The latter resigned on Sunday, after his indictment in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining.
State governor H R Bhardwaj formally invited Gowda this evening to form the next government. Since Gowda was Yeddyurappa’s choice, his election indicates his leading influence. The party’s central observers, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh and Venkaiah Naidu, and Dharmendra Pradhan, in-charge of Karnataka affairs, were present at the time of secret voting.
“It’s an opportunity for me and I will try give good administration and deliver development works in the next two years. I will continue all the developmental programmes announced in the last three years by my predecessor,” said Gowda.
After failing to broker peace between Yeddyurappa and his rivals, the central leadership finally agreed to his faction’s repeated demands for a secret vote to select the new CM.
Gowda, a former state unit chief, is a Lok Sabha member from the Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency. He served as deputy opposition leader in the assembly, when Jagadish Shettar was leader of the opposition in 1999-2004. As president of the state unit, he led the party to power during the election in May 2008.
Although central leaders of the BJP have decided not to reveal details of the secret voting, senior leaders in Karnataka say 66 MLAs voted for Gowda, largely seen as Yeddyurappa’s candidate, and 52 MLAs for Shettar, the rural development minister, a known detractor of Yeddyurappa. He was powerfully backed by senior leader Ananth Kumar, state unit head K S Eshwarappa, and home minister R Ashok.
“The central leadership wanted q unanimous choice for the new chief minister but it didn’t happen because both sides were not willing to give up their claim. So, finally they agreed to have secret voting,” said a minister close to Yeddyurappa.
This faction believes Shettar and other rivals of Yeddyurappa would fall in line and would not work against Gowda because the party high command has asked everyone to end rivalry and work for the party. “The rivalry was only till secret voting had not taken place. Now there is no problem or at least no further problems would be created for some time, because the central observers were present during the voting process,” added the minister.
Apart from the 118 MLAs who came to vote, three chose to abstain — Suresh Kumar, S Shivanna and Prahlad Raman. BJP leaders also said that legislative assembly speaker K G Bopaiah also didn’t vote for either of the two.
Shettar said he would extend full cooperation to the chief minister-elect and work in the new government for the benefit of the people. “I congratulate Gowda for being elect ed as the party’s legislative leader and support the government to serve the people during the remaining 22 months of the tenure.”
