Bangalore, Sep 6 (IANS): A day after former minister and mining baron G. Janardhana Reddy was arrested for illegal mining, the top leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday began assessing the fallout on the party and its government in Karnataka.
Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and his predecessor, B.S. Yeddyurappa, who quit following charges of corruption, flew to Nagpur to brief BJP president Nitin Gadkari on the possible impact of Janardhana Reddy's arrest.
"I will discuss with Gadkari all the developments that have taken place in the last 24 hours," Gowda told reporters in Hubli in north Karnataka before leaving for Nagpur.
Gowda said Yeddyurappa would also be there but state BJP chief K.S. Eshwarappa, who too was asked by Gadkari to reach Nagpur, would not attend as he was unwell.
Besides Janardhana Reddy's arrest, the state unit is caught in a wrangle over the role Yeddyurappa should play in the party campaign for an assembly by-poll from Koppal, about 300 km from here, scheduled for Sep 26.
The by-poll was necessitated by Janata Dal-Secular legislator Karadi Sanganna quitting the assembly and his party to join the BJP in March this year.
Yeddyurappa's supporters want him to lead the campaign despite a slew of corruption cases against him.
This is being resisted by a section in the BJP that fears that the scandal surrounding Yeddyurappa would affect the party's prospects in the by-poll, the first to be held after Gowda assumed office Aug 4.
Janardhana Reddy, who was tourism and infrastructure minister in the Yeddyurappa cabinet, had come to enjoy enormous clout in the state unit as he was believed to be one of its major funders.
His loyalist and former health minister B. Sriramulu Sunday resigned from the assembly and was planning a statewide tour from Monday, apparently to assess people's response shoukld they decide to float a regional party.
Sriramulu's resignation and talk of launching a regional party were seen in the state's political circles as more a ploy to secure cabinet posts in the Gowda ministry for himself and Janardhana Reddy's elder brother G. Karunakara, who was revenue minister in the Yeddyurappa government.
The Reddy brothers and Sriramulu were not taken into the Gowda ministry as the three have been indicted by the Lokayukta (ombudsman) for illegal mining.
Janardhana Reddy's arrest has forced the brothers and their loyalists in the state BJP to rework their strategy. Their immediate concern, however, would be to get bail for Janardhana Reddy.