Speculation on leadership change continues to haunt Yediyurappa

Amid a string of key political meetings and a petition being signed by a group of BJP MLAs against Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, speculation was again rife on Tuesday of a possible leadership chang

Amid a string of key political meetings and a petition being signed by a group of BJP MLAs against Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, speculation was again rife on Tuesday of a possible leadership change in the State. The Chief Minister’s camp shot this down as “baseless” talk, but intense lobbying to dislodge him seems to have been taken up with renewed energy. Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai and the Chief Minister’s son B.Y. Vijayendra met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Sunday. Mr. Bommai has denied that it was a political meeting, given that Mr. Vijayendra accompanied him. But this meeting was closely followed by BJP State president Nalin Kumar Kateel and party national general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh meeting the Chief Minister at his residence on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, fuelling further speculation. Both meetings were termed “courtesy visits”. The camp within the BJP lobbying hard to dislodge the Chief Minister has argued with the high command that Mr. Yediyurappa had failed to efficiently handle the pandemic and not prepared enough for the impending oxygen crisis, resulting in people directing their anger towards the Union government. A “campaign” in this regard began immediately after the Chamarajanagar tragedy, when C.T. Ravi, party national general secretary, said the government was responsible. This was followed by a livestreamed expose of an alleged scandal by party MP Tejasvi Surya and three MLAs.