Bangalore, Oct 27 (Inditop.com) It was a day of meetings of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ministers and legislators in Karnataka here Tuesday as opponents of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa upped the ante to force him to concede their demands.
Yeddyurappa himself held a meeting of ministers loyal to him along with state BJP president D.V.Sadananda Gowda to discuss ways to rein in the influential iron ore mine owners, who are also ministers and leading the dissidence campaign against him.
The mine barons – Tourism Minister G. Janardhana Reddy, his brother and Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy and their staunch loyalist and Health Minister B. Sriramulu – also met separately with the ministers and legislators supporting them.
They wanted to extert pressure on Yeddyurappa over their demands, which include an end to alleged interference in the running of their ministries by ministers said to be close to Yeddyyurappa and prior consultation with them on transfer of officials.
The Reddy brothers also want Rajya Sabha member and industrialist Rajeev Chandrashekar to be removed as in-charge of flood relief operations in north Karnataka. Chandrashekar was recently appointed to supervise rehabilitation efforts in the area devastated by the Sep 30-Oct 2 rain and flash floods.
In most of these areas, the Reddy brothers wield considerable influence and hence they want relief operations to be carried out under their supervision.
M.P.Renukacharya, a legislator who had identified himself with the Reddy brothers, Tuesday sprang a surprise by holding a separate meeting with a few legislators.
The Reddy brothers announced Tuesday that they will go ahead with construction of 50,000 houses in flood-hit areas with the money they and other mine owners in iron-ore rich Bellary district, around 400 km from here, have raised.
They do not plan to invite Yeddyurappa to the function to launch the construction work as he is opposed to Reddy brothers going solo in relief work. He wants them to make the programme a government effort and not of their own.
“It is left to him to participate or not. We are going ahead with our plan,” Janardhana Reddy asserted Tuesday after meeting his loyalist ministers and legislators.
After meeting his supporters, Yeddyurappa told reporters that he will call the Reddy brothers for talks to resolve the differences. “I will talk to them in a day or two. Everything will be sorted out,” he said.
State party chief Sadananda Gowda was more forthright in expressing his anger at the dissidence.
“We have seen media reports about dissident activity. We will collect information from others also. Indiscipline will not be tolerated,” he warned.
The Reddy brothers are believed to have bankrolled the BJP operation to woo legislators from other parties to secure majority for the party’s first government in Karnataka and south India.
In the May 2008 elections, the BJP won 110 of the 224 elected seats in the 225-member assembly. It formed the government with the help of six Independents who were won over by the Reddy brothers.
The Reddy brothers also played a major role in getting half a dozen more Congress and Janata Dal-Secular legislators to join the BJP. Most of them were re-elected in by-polls as BJP candidates, giving the party a majority on its own in the assembly.
