The rift in the ruling BJP in Karnataka widened further today with the two Reddy brothers, who are ministers in the state cabinet, intensifying their efforts to make chief minister B S Yeddyurappa yield to their pressures.
The BJP central leadership rushed senior leader Arun Jaitley to Bangalore to contain the growing rebellion against Yeddyurappa over his alleged dictatorial style of functioning.
Jaitley, who is also in charge of the party’s affairs in the state, met Yeddyurappa immediately after landing here on Wednesday afternoon even as the two mining lords, tour-ism minister G Janardhana Reddy and his elder brother and revenue minister G Karunakara Reddy, defied the chief minister over the rehabilitation work in flood-hit north Karnataka.
Jaitley told reporters that “everything will be fine”.
Earlier in the day, the Reddy brothers launched a programme in their iron-ore rich home district of Bellary, about 330 km from here, to build 50,000 houses for the floodhit from the money they had raised from the public. They went ahead with the programme ignoring Yeddyurappa’s plea not to make the rehabilitation work look like a private affair, but a collective effort of the government. The Reddy brothers did not invite Yeddyurappa to the ground breaking ceremony.
Meanwhile, Yeddyurappa hit back by transferring five officials, said to be close to the Reddy brothers, from Bellary. The officials include Bellary deputy commissioner and police superintendent B Shivappa and S K Singh respectively, and health secretary I R Perumal. The transfer orders were issued while the ‘bhumi puja’ was on in Bellary where the deputy commissioner was present.
Yeddyurappa defended the transfer, saying he wanted to post ‘good officials’ to ensure proper flood rehabilitation work. “It does not mean these officials are not good,” he added.
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Taking exception to the transfers, Janardhana Reddy accused Yeddyurappa of being anti-Dalit as Shivappa and Perumal belonged to sch-eduled castes.
The Reddy brothers want Yeddyurappa to give them a free hand in running their ministries, and have the final say in the transfer of officials in their ministries and in several northern districts where they wield influence and ending the alleged interference in their work by ministers close to the chief minister.
They are also against the appointment of industrialist and Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekar as head of the panel to oversee flood relief and rehab work.
The rains during September 30-October 2 and the subsequent flash floods that killed over 220 people and damaged over 500,000 houses leaving over a million homeless.
The Reddy brothers have not responded to Yeddyurappa’s appeals to come for talks to sort out their grievances.
Instead, they are propping up assembly speaker Jagadish Shettar as a successor to Yeddyurappa.