Bangalore: Yeddy Sacrifices Baligar, Gains Little as Reddys Adamant on Ouster

From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Banglaore

Banngalore, Nov 6: The beleaguered Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurppa, who has been desperately trying to save his sinking ship, offered the first sacrifice to the Bellary Reddy brothers at the altar of political expedience by shunting out his principal secretary V P Baligar.

Baligar was overnight shifted to the commerce and industry department as principal secretary and replaced with a low-profile and completely unheard of officer like the managing director of Mangalore Special Economic Zone (MSEZ) I S N Prasad, both of assumed charges in their respective positions this morning. But Yeddyurappa gained precious little and the crisis remained unresolved.

Yeddyurappa, who had scheduled a cabinet meeting on Friday evening and was asked by the party high command to cancel it to stay in Delhi for talks, had planned to return to Bangalore tonight after this evening’s decisive talks at BJP leader L K Advani’s residence. With the failure of the talks, Yeddyurappa was asked to stay back in Delhi for another 24 hours and consequently the chief minister has decided to stay for another day at the national capital. Meanwhile, Gali Janardhana Reddy, who is leading the dissidence war, has left for Hyderabad to hold talks with the MLAs camping there to support him.

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa called on the senior BJP leader Murali Manohar Joshi in New Delhi on Nov 6.  Dr V S Acharya, DV Sadananda Gowda, V Dhanajaya Kumar, Ganesh Karnik were also present.

The Reddy brothers, who have been spearheading the multi-pronged dissident battle against Yeddyurappa, refused to budge an inch from their stand for change of leadership and adamantly refused to even meet the chief minister for a face-to-face to discussion and possible compromise in the presence of the BJP high command. The  chief minister is also understood to have offered to revoke some of the recent transfers and postings of officers to buy peace with the dissidents, He has also offered to induct assembly speaker  Jagadish Shettar into the cabinet and give him a portofolio of his choice.

With the party high command’s intervention, the Yeddyurappa camp is confident of the crisis being resolved. However, if the dissidents refuse to budge, the chief minister is understood to have told the party high command of his intention to face a mid-term election if necessary after taking disciplinary action against the dissidents. But the BJP central leadership has reportedly counseled patience and haste slowly.

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa visited Rajghat in New Delhi on Nov 6 and paid respects to father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi.  Home minister Dr V S Acharya, State BJP president D V Sadananda Gowda were present.

In a surprise development, reports from Delhi indicated that former prime minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda met BJP national president Rajnath Singh. The fact that Gowda’s  son and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy are in Delhi at the same time most of the BJP’s ministers and key leaders in the state, including the chief minister, are camping, has given room for speculation regarding BJP-JD(S) forging new ties despite the public statements against any ties between BJP and JD(S) by the leaders of the latter party.

With the mining lords targeting Baligar and sniping at rural development and panchayat raj minister Shobha Karandlaje, who the former had vehemently opposed for their political interference, Yeddyurappa had apparently directed his protégé to declare her willingness to quit if that would appease the Reddys, which the pupil had dutifully complied with on Thursday itself. She had even faxed her resignation to Advani so as to convince the Reddys that the chief minister was serious in going the extra mile to meet the demands of the dissidents, sources said.

The chief minister, however, is leant to stubbornly refused to yield to demands to allot key portfolios like home or other departments which were likely to directly benefit the Reddys in the mining business. Countering the demands of dissidents for dropping Shobha and Dr Acharya, the chief minister is believed to have said that he would have to drop some of the ministers in the Reddy camp too to strike a balance and reshuffle the portfolios.

Even as 52 legislators, including ministers owing allegiance to the Reddys and swearing by the demand for replacing Yeddyurappa with assembly speaker Jagadish Shettar, faxed their resignation letters from the assembly to the tourism and infrastructure minister Gali Janardhana Reddy in Delhi to be forwarded to BJP national president Rajnath Singh as a pressure tactic in view of the fact that there is a prescribed format and procedure for resigning.

Meanwhile, three of the legislators, who had pledged their support to the Reddy brothers, have switched their loyalties to the chief minister. They have even made it clear that they had not visited Hyderabad as reported in the media but were ``staying in their rooms at the legislators’ home’’ in Bangalore.

While Baligar is learnt to have expressed his great sense of relief with those close to him at being released from the high pressure and thankless job, which brought him more brickbats than bouquets, and posted to a position he had held in the past, Prasad told Daijiworld: ``I don’t know why I have been posted to this hot seat. I am not personally acquainted with the chief minister nor do I know him that closely. I have may have met him a few times during official interactions. I am totally unfamiliar with any of the other key leaders nor with most of the legislators. I have kept to myself and my responsibilities as chief executive of MSEZ or in KRDCL.’’

When Daijiworld said:``That may have been precisely the reason for his posting to the hot seat so that nobody can take him for granted or try to get special favours while allowing him the luxury of pleading helplessness to attend to the complex demands immediately and seek time for study,’’ Prasad quipped: ``Well, that may well be the case.  I certainly need time to get a hang of things in the state secretariat and dealing with the chief minister, ministers and legislators almost on a daily basis.’’

According to official sources in the state secretariat, Prasad may have been chosen because he hails from Andhra Pradesh and is a Telugu, who can deal with the Bellary Reddy brothers as they and most of the BJP legislators from north Karnataka are Telugu-speaking. These sources also claimed that BJP’s senior leader Venkaiah Naidu, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, had suggested appointment of Prasad as the ideal person to deal with the situation.

However, the BJP high command made little progress in its efforts to break the impasse as the Reddys reportedly made it clear that they and their supporters would quit their assembly membership rather than accept Yeddyurappa’s leadership. ``We will accept nothing short of change of leadership,’’ Janardhana Reddy reportedly told the high command emissaries, including their ``political mother’’ Sushma Swaraj, L K Advani and national president Rajnath Singh.

Janardhana Reddy, who is undoubtedly the architect of the two-week-long rebellion, has categorically declared that they would never deviate from their stand. ``We have conveyed our grievances and placed our demands before the national leaders as also our ``political mother’’ Sushma Swaraj and are confident that the central leadership will take a correct decision in a day or two,’’ he asserted.

``I have been in Delh  since the last four days. From the beginning, my stand and those of my supporters is unchanged. I am speaking for my party workers and voicing the feelings of majority of MLAs. I will say it again and again that I will never speak to Yeddyurappa at all,’’ he declared and reiterated the same comments after reaching Hyderabd. ``We are confident that the party high command will take a decision in 2 or 3 days,’’ he added.