Karnataka ex-minister Eshwarappa ‘to skip Assembly over BJP failure to reinduct’ him

“I am disappointed, which is why I am not attending the session. I have never hesitated to speak out in my life. I am relieved that I was cleared of the allegations. People of Karnataka knew that I had no role in it. The case was closed and I was given a clean chit. I thought I would be taken in the cabinet and I am disappointed. It will come to the notice of state and central leaders. I believe that I will be in the cabinet again,” he told reporters in Shivamogga.

“Former chief minister B S Yediyurappa, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and state BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel had promised me that I would be reinducted if I got a clean chit in the contractor suicide case… You should ask them about it, not me.”

A BJP source said Eshwarappa was trying to pressure Bommai even as the latter had hinted at inducting new faces into the cabinet.

On April 12, the body of contractor Patil, who was also a BJP worker, was found at a lodge in Udupi. Before his death, Patil wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that Eshwarappa and his men had demanded a 40 per cent commission to clear bills for the work he had carried out.

Though the police’s Criminal Investigation Department gave a clean chit to Eshwarappa, Patil’s wife wrote to Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot expressing her apprehension that the investigation would absolve Eshwarappa.

A Kuruba leader, Eshwarappa followed in the footsteps of Yediyurappa and D H Shankarmurthy, another BJP leader. The firebrand politician, who was deputy chief minister in 2012, has often faced flak for his comments.

In 2021, Eshwarappa accused Yediyurappa’s family of interfering in the government’s functioning. He complained to then governor Vajubhai Vala that all projects of his rural development department were being cleared by the chief minister’s office.

In February, when the hijab controversy was raging, Eshwarappa said the saffron flag might replace the national flag someday at the Red Fort in Delhi. After Bajarang Dal worker Harsha’s murder in Shivamogga, he said the man had been killed by “Muslim goons”, even before police opened an investigation.