India
Party fields relatively unknown T. Basavaraju as its candidate
After a day of high drama when the BJP central leadership denied State president B.S. YeddyurappaтАЩs son B.Y. Vijayendra ticket to contest from Varuna, the partyтАЩs flip-flop over the candidate for the constituency ended, but not exactly in the manner imagined by party workers.
Though they were hopeful that тАЬwisdomтАЭ would prevail among the party top brass, sources in the BJP told┬аThe Hindu┬аthat there was no compromise on the issue and Mr. Yeddyurappa was told in no uncertain terms that Mr. Vijayendra would not be issued the тАШBтАЩ form. Instead, the party fielded a relatively unknown T. Basavaraju as its candidate.
Mr. Vijayendra тАФ who campaigned in the constituency for the last two to three weeks тАФ was tipped to take on Yathindra, son of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in Varuna and this had stoked tremendous interest in the developments in the constituency.
Consequent to the ruckus created by party workers on Monday over the issue, senior BJP leaders, including Union Minister Prakash Javdekar, who is the BJP in charge for the Assembly elections in┬аKarnataka,┬аand BJP national general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao, visited Mysuru on Tuesday and held a meeting with Mr. Yeddyurappa to convey the partyтАЩs decision to him.
A miffed Mr. Yeddyurappa sought to take the blame on himself so as to deflect the criticism against the party leadership.
He later addressed party workers and said that Mr. Vijayendra would not contest from Varuna for тАЬspecial reasonsтАЭ but would campaign in the constituency for 20 days in support of the party candidate to тАЬensure his victoryтАЭ. His appeal to the party workers to cooperate got drowned in slogans raised by the activists.
Official line
Mr. Javdekar said Mr. Yeddyurappa had taken the тАЬhistoric decisionтАЭ of not fielding his son Mr. Vijayendra and the тАЬparty was fully supportive of his decisionтАЭ.
In view of the popularity of Mr. Vijayendra and his work, he was being vested with a new responsibility and appointed as the BJP Yuva Morcha general secretary, announced Mr. Javdekar. This, however, had no impact on the workers who expressed their ire over denying him the тАШBтАЩ form.
Support from G.T. Deve Gowda
BJP activists received support from unexpected quarters when the Janata Dal (Secular) leader and candidate for Chamundeshwari constituency G.T. Deve Gowda appealed to the BJP to field B.Y. Vijayendra in Varuna.
тАЬThe objective is to defeat the Congress and it is the peopleтАЩs wish,тАЭ he said.
Mr. Gowda had pitched for his son G.D. Harish Gowda to be named as the JD(S) candidate for Varuna, but it did not materialise and the party persisted with its official nominee Abhishek.
