Daijiworld Media Network – Bangalore (SP)

New Delhi, Aug 10: During the maiden visit of state Chief Minister (CM), D V Sadananda Gowda (DVS), to New Delhi on Tuesday August 9 after his swearing in, the top leaders of the BJP including L K Advani and others reportedly advised him in no uncertain terms, to keep former CM, B S Yeddyurappa, away from the corridors of power. Advani in particular, told DVS during his meeting with DVS, that during the last three years, the BJP in Karnataka had got relegated into an individual-centric party.

He insisted that this is a development that will hurt the party in the long run, and told Gowda to aim at bringing the party back on tracks by working to wriggle itself out of the individualistic approach.

Sources said that Advani expressed himself strongly against the way Yeddyurappa had ruled the state during the last three years. Advani said he was proud at the fact that the BJP could come to power in Karnataka for the first time in South India on its own. He however, disagreed with the strategies used to ensure this success. Advani is said to have disapproved the fact that hundreds of crores of rupees had been spent for ensuring the election of the candidates fielded by the BJP not only in the parliamentary election, but also assembly election and by polls in Karnataka.

Advani said that among these disheartening developments, a dangerous phenomenon started to gain shape in Karnataka, that of the party growing around a particular individual. He said that a political party should always have a number of eminent leaders, and that it should not rely on a single leader, in which case the leader will have power to dictate terms to the central leadership. He said that he could sense this danger taking shape in Karnataka.

He expressed displeasure at the fact that Yeddyurappa chose to stick to his post, in spite of various allegations levelled him. He said that even after the Lokayukta report indicted him of getting involved with illegal mining and receiving donation of Rs 20 crore to an educational trust run by his family, Yeddyurappa continued to say that he would resign only if the courts which are hearing these cases, found him guilty. “If we had allowed to have Yeddyurappa his say, the BJP would have become the property of an individual, not a democratic party,” the former deputy Prime Minister of the country told Gowda.

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Advani also expressed apprehension that Yeddyurappa, in insisting that Sadananda Gowda alone should be chosen as his successor, had some plan in mind. “There is widespread notion that you are a puppet in the hand of Yeddyurappa, and that you will work as a proxy CM on his behalf. You should prove this notion wrong, and rule the state efficiently,” he is said to have advised DVS. He told the CM that the developments preceding the swearing –in ceremony of the first batch of ministers in the state too have worked to strengthen the suspicion that DVS was working as per the diktats of Yeddyurappa. He told Gowda that the foremost task before him is to ensure that the BJP does not grow into a party built around a particular individual.

“Come out of the clutches of Yeddyurappa. Work hard, and earn the confidence of all classes of the society in the state. Show your capacity through working hard for the all-round development of the state,” Advani told Gowda. Perhaps, time alone will be able to tell as to how far DVS will be able to follow Advani’s advice.