Trying to keep in check the infighting ahead of the Karnataka Assembly polls, the BJP high command has warned MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal not to speak against former chief minister B S Yediyurappa. Yatnal, MLA for the Bijapur City constituency, said, “I have not compromised but will remain silent as the high command has directed me to do so.” He added that his differences with the BJP parliamentary board member were political, not personal. Considered to be the uncrowned king of political rhetoric in the northern districts, Yatnal has been making statements against Yediyurappa and his son Vijayendra, putting the party in a fix. The 59-year-old MLA was recently in the news after he lashed out at Murugesh Nirani, minister for large and medium industries. “There is a pimp minister and he is doing the work of a pimp. It is his business,” he said last week of Nirani at a Panchamasali Lingayat protest for OBC reservation. Both Panchamasalis, Yatnal and Nirani are vying with each other to emerge as the foremost leader of the subsect of Lingayats—one of the most dominant communities in the state. In response, Nirani tore into Yatnal and suggested he should have no place in the party. “If he does not control his tongue, then there will come a time when his tongue will have to be cut off,” he said. “If he is born to his father, let him withdraw a stay order he has obtained. He had a driver called Kumar earlier. He was murdered. Why was he murdered? Let him explain. If he has no respect for the party, why is he in the party? Let him get out.” Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who was in New Delhi last week, said the two BJP leaders’ public spat had been reported to the high command. “We had given notices in the past and he had been quiet for a year. Now he has spoken again about a few issues. Nirani has also spoken. Our party president has spoken to them and sent a report,” Bommai said. A two-time BJP Lok Sabha MP (1999-2004), Yatnal was a minister of state in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government between 2002 and 2004.
