The Hindu : Karnataka News : BJP office-bearers, legislators to hold meet in Bangalore

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

BJP office-bearers, legislators to hold meet in Bangalore

Special Correspondent

Party to finalise strategy against Govt.'s `misdeeds' `The Government can no longer continue in office in view of the adverse High Court verdict on the BMIC project'

SHIMOGA: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has convened a meeting of its MPs, MLAs, MLCs and party office-bearers in Bangalore on Friday to finalise its strategy against what it called the "misdeeds" of the Congress-led coalition Government, particularly with regard to the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project.

"It will be followed by a `Raj Bhavan chalo' programme to convince the Governor, T.N. Chaturvedi, that the Government can no longer continue in office in view of the adverse High Court verdict on the BMIC project," B.S. Yediyurappa, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, told presspersons here on Tuesday.

`Announce date'

Referring to the reported threat by the former Prime Minister and President of the Janata Dal (S), H.D. Deve Gowda, that he plans to apprise the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, about land grabbing in and around Bangalore, Mr. Yediyurappa wanted Mr. Deve Gowda to announce the date on which he would meet Mr. Kalam.

"If he fails to do so, we will be forced to construe that he made the threat only for political gain," he said and hoped that as a former Prime Minister he would stick to his word.

Taking strong exception to another reported remark by Mr. Deve Gowda that he and the Congress President, Sonia Gandhi, alone are in a position to decide the future of the Government in the State, Mr. Yediyurappa said it amounts to an insult to the elected representatives as well as the people of the State.

He demanded an inquiry by a sitting judge of the Supreme Court be ordered into the alleged irregularities in the acquisition of the land for the BMIC project if Mr. Deve Gowda is genuinely interested in unravelling the truth about the case.

The BJP leader appealed to the voters in the Shimoga Lok Sabha constituency to teach the former Chief Minister S. Bangarappa a lesson by defeating him in the byelection so that what he called "his political opportunism" could be put to an end.

Mr. Yediyurappa said he hopes that Mr. Bangarappa will advise the MLAs for Hosnagar and Sagar, Hartalu Halappa and Beluru Gopalakrishna respectively, who were elected to the Assembly on the BJP ticket in the last election, to resign from the party as well as from the Assembly as they are said to be his trusted lieutenants.

His party has decided to approach the Speaker of the Assembly and ask him to take note of the "anti-party activities" of these MLAs and deal with them under the provisions of the Anti-Defection Act. They have not replied to the show-cause notice issued to them by the President of the BJP State unit in this connection, he said.

`Serious mistake'

Agreeing that the admission of Mr. Bangarappa into the BJP before the last general election was a serious mistake, he said it was done at the behest of some party leaders from the State although the then Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, and the then Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, were against it.

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