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Journalism of Courage
There seems to be growing discontent in the Karnataka BJP in the wake of the party’s defeat in the recent Assembly elections. It has already started playing out openly over the nomination of the BJP candidates for the Lok Sabha polls due in April-May next year.
Signalling the trouble brewing in the state BJP, former chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda, the Bengaluru North MP, has come out to accuse some insiders of allegedly hatching a conspiracy to deny the 2024 poll tickets to the state’s sitting party MPs.
Last Monday, three-time BJP MP from Haveri-Gadag, Shivkumar Udasi, announced his retirement from electoral politics citing “personal reasons”. “I decided not to contest a year ago, and I have informed the state party leaders,” Udasi said at Haveri.
Karnataka political circles are abuzz that state BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel, the three-time MP from Dakshina Kannada, and ex-Union minister Anantkumar Hegde, the six-time MP representing Uttara Kannada, may be among the incumbent MPs whom the party leadership would deny tickets.
An audio clip of a purported conversation involving Tumkur MP G S Basavaraj was also leaked, where he is heard saying that he will not contest the coming election due to his advanced age and that former minister V Somanna might be fielded from his constituency.
Addressing a press conference Tuesday, Sadananda lashed out at “some media outlets” over reports that as many as 13 of the current 25 BJP MPs from the state will not get party tickets in the 2024 polls. The BJP had swept the state in the 2019 parliamentary polls, winning 25 of its total 28 seats. The Congress and the JD(S) had managed to win just one seat each, while Sumalatha Ambareesh had won as an Independent candidate from the Mandya constituency.
“(Some) are carrying out character assassination of sitting MPs. Who is doing that? … Why is the media reporting it? Is the media the spokesperson of the party?” Sadananda told the press conference shortly after reports that he too might not be fielded in the 2024 election.
“Udasi might have announced his retirement fearing that he will face more insults. The conspirators might think that other leaders will follow suit. I want to tell them that we are not cowards…. This might be a conspiracy to end the party or malign individuals,” he said, urging the party leadership to step in and counter such speculations.
Hailing Udasi as an “efficient parliamentarian”, Sadananda said, “If he has announced his retirement from active politics, then you can imagine how he might have been hurt.”
Meanwhile, there were reports that some BJP activists from the coastal Dakshina Kannada district have petitioned senior party leaders, urging them not to give Kateel ticket again from the constituency as many party workers were “upset” with him.
Although in the Assembly elections the BJP fared well in the coastal district where Kateel hails from, he is blamed for his alleged high-handedness in the selection of candidates due to which, they charge, a popular Hindutva activist was denied ticket in the Puttur constituency.
Hegde is said to be recuperating from an illness, even as he has rarely attended public events in recent months.
In his response to the audio clip row, Somanna claimed that he was not a contender for the party’s Lok Sabha ticket. In the Assembly polls, he lost from both the seats, Varuna and Chamarajanagar, that he contested.
The BJP was routed by the Congress in the Assembly polls, slumping to 66 seats against the latter’s 135 in the 224-member House.
