Bengaluru: The tenure of Pralhad Joshi as the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka will be valid for more than two years.
All of a sudden, there have been demands from different quarters propping up their own candidates. Some religious leaders also have demanded that Lok Sabha member and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa be made the state president.
In support of their demand, Prabhakar B Kore, Belagavi-based educationist, entrepreneur and Rajya Sabha member, joined a delegation of MPs from northern Karnataka seeking reappointment of BSY as the state president, to PM Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah, during the recent national executive meeting held in Bengaluru. It was argued that his leadership was absolutely essential to bring back the party to power in the state.
Shah was apparently piqued by the demand made in the open, which virtually meant the ouster of Pralhad Joshi as the president. He is said to have deemed the demand made by the delegation a clear case of indiscipline.
Shah said very firmly that no one could violate the party discipline and it applied to Kore as well. Any decision about the president’s post would be taken by the party and no one could issue any public statement in the matter, Shah is reported to have reacted.
On the personal instructions of Shah, Muralidhar Rao, party functionary for Karnataka, has served a notice on Kore on Tuesday. However, many BJP leaders are surprised by this move. Such an authoritarian action indicates lack of internal democracy, they said.
They argue that, after all, those who took the delegation used a democratic and peaceful method of putting up a reasonable request and did not take to the streets in the open.
It is not known what Kore has to say in the matter.
