With Assembly elections just round the corner in Karnataka, the central BJP held consultations with key leaders here on Sunday to pick a new state unit president, a not-so-smooth affair.
Senior party leader Arun Jaitley and in-charge of party affairs in Karnataka, Dharmendra Pradhan, presided a meeting of the party's state core committee, where factionalism was in full play. It was attended among others by chief minister Jagadish Shettar, deputy chief ministers KS Eshwarappa and R Ashoka and former chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda, besides senior party leader H N Ananth Kumar.
Eshwarappa announced his resignation as state unit president on March 7, paving the way for a new party head. According to party sources, Sadananda Gowda, who was the state unit president when BJP installed its first-ever government in the South in 2008, may have emerged as the front-runner for the post.
The sources said Gowda had the backing of the party's central leadership. The party had sought to put him in the saddle last year, to replace Eshwarappa, but it was stoutly opposed by heavyweight BS Yeddyurappa before he quit BJP and floated a regional outfit Karnataka Janatha Paksha.
Gowda comes from the dominant Vokkaliga community and it's considered a huge plus. He also comes from coastal Karnataka, a BJP stronghold though there is said to be discontent among a section of the party's rank and file in recent years.
Besides Gowda, the names of Ashoka, another Vokkaliga, Dakshina Kannada MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel, Dharwad North MP Prahlad Joshi and Karnataka minister Govind M Karjol, were making the rounds for the post. The sources said it eventually was a three-way race among Gowda, Ashoka and Joshi, though it was said that Shettar and Ananth Kumar were keen on Karjol, an SC, contending that his selection would send a "right message".
Joshi, a Brahmin who hails from the same region as Shettar, appeared to have lost out, as also Ashoka, whose influence is mostly confined to Bangalore urban district. RSS-supported Kateel has a clean image but he is a first time MP handicapped by political inexperience, the sources said.
The announcement on the new state unit chief is expected to be made in a day or two by BJP president Rajnath Singh in the national capital. Elections in Karnataka are due in May and there are indications that anti-incumbency factor is weighing heavily on the minds of the BJP leadership.
