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Yediyurappa gets his way in picking Karnataka legislative council nominees
On Thursday the Bharatiya Janata Party gave tickets to MTB Nagaraj, R Shankar, Sunil Vallyapure and Pratap Simha Nayak, all of whom immediately filed their nominations.
Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa - days after the Central leadership said no to his nominees for the Rajya Sabha seat - seems to have had his way if the ticket allocation for the legislative council seats is any indication.
On Thursday the Bharatiya Janata Party gave tickets to MTB Nagaraj, R Shankar, Sunil Vallyapure and Pratap Simha Nayak, all of whom immediately filed their nominations.
Seven seats in the 75-member legislative council will be vacant as members retire after a six-year term. The BJP can win four seats, the Congress two and the regional Janata Dal (Secular) one.
The Congress on Tuesday itself had announced that B K Hari Prasad, who recently retired from the Rajya Sabha, would be sent to the Karnataka Legislative Council and Naseer Ahmed, another party leader, would be given a second term.
The BJP’s choice of candidates was closely watched as both MTB Nagaraj and R Shankar had helped topple the Congress-JDS coalition government. In the bypolls, MTB Nagaraj lost out to a BJP rebel candidate Sharat Bachegowda while Shankar decided to ‘sacrifice’ his Ranibennur seat in favour of a BJP candidate.
Similarly, Sunil Vallyapure, BJP state secretary of SC Morcha, had given up his claim on the Chincholi assembly seat so that Avinash Jadhav, son of Gulbarga MP Umesh Jadhav, could be accommodated.
Umesh Jadhav was wooed from the Congress to defeat Mallikarjuna Kharge with the assembly seat promised to his son as part of the bargain. Vallyapure, who had represented the seat in 2008, was waiting to be ‘rewarded’ by the party. All the three are being seen as Yediyurappa’s candidates. Only AH Vishwanath, former JDS Karnataka unit president who played an important role in toppling the coalition government, did not get a ticket after losing from Hunasuru.
Vishwanath expressed his disappointment to HT, saying, “Yes, I was also an aspirant for a council seat and disappointed that I did not get (a ticket to council). However, I still believe that Yediyurappa will keep his promise to me. I have full faith in him.”
The fourth BJP candidate Pratap Simha Nayak, who hails from Belthangady in the coastal Karnataka stronghold of the party, is seen as a close associate of party president Nalin Kumar Kateel. Party leaders, however, claimed that there were no factions and that the party high command had chosen the candidates on merits. Kateel, speaking to the media, said, “Nayak is a veteran leader of the party, Vallyapure a former minister and both MTB Nagaraj and Shankar made sacrifices to ensure BJP came back to power under Yediyurappa’s leadership.”
The JDS, on the other hand, has decided to give the ticket to a Kolar origin businessman Inchara Govindraj, who filed his papers accompanied by former CM HD Kumaraswamy and other senior party leaders.
Political analyst L Manjunath said: “After the loss of face to Yediyurappa in the Rajya Sabha ticket race, any setback here would have undermined his leadership. By ensuring that three of the four seats went to his followers, he has signalled that he cannot be sidelined easily at least for the present. Vishwanath may still be accommodated under the nominated category in the council. Yediyurappa has redeemed his sense of honour after the RS ticket debacle.”
In the 75-member legislative council, Congress has 38 members, JDS 15 and BJP 20 with two independents. Voting, if required, would be held on June 29 but most likely all the seven candidates from the three main political parties will probably be elected unopposed.
