BJP central leadership relieves 4 Karnataka office bearers

Bengaluru: The BJP central leadership has cracked down on warring factions in the party’s Karnataka unit, relieving two office bearers each from the state President B S Yeddyurappa and senior leader K S Eshwarappa camps.

The decision comes following a series of meetings held by BJP National General Secretary and Karnataka in-charge Muralidhar Rao with party leaders, here yesterday. “In the backdrop of the recent developments in the party, Vice Presidents of state unit Bhanuprakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana, Vice President of Raitha Morcha M P Renukacharya and Spokesperson G Madhusudhan have been relieved from all responsibilities of the party with immediate effect,” State BJP General Secretary N Ravi Kumar said in a statement last night.

Factional feud in the party had intensified on April 27 with Eshwarappa holding a convention to “save” the organisation in defiance of warnings by Yeddyurappa’s camp against it. While Bhanuprakash and Nirmal Kumar Surana had shared the stage with Eshwarappa at the convention, Renukacharya and G Madhusudhan considered close to Yeddyurappa had made public statements targeting National Joint General Secretary (Organisation) B L Santhosh.

Calling the convention an “anti party activity,” Yeddyurappa had also blamed Santhosh, considered to hold significant sway over party affairs in the state, for scripting it. Resentment has been brewing within the party over Yeddyurappa’s alleged “unilateral” style of functioning following the appointment of party office-bearers and over “ignoring” loyal workers and the old guard of the party.

Fissures within the Karnataka unit have come as a point of bother to the central leadership which is hoping for revival of party’s fortunes in the Assembly polls early next year to see BJP’s return to power. Forming the first-ever government in the South, BJP had ruled the state from 2008 to 2013 which saw three chief ministers, factional wars and corruption charges leading to Congress’s return to power.