BJP candidates, victors & losers, get candid at meet

Several defeated BJP MLAs reportedly slammed former ministers, especially former health minister Dr K Sudhakar, for not honouring their transfer requests.

Former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai also came under fire, albeit in a veiled manner, for not taking pro-active steps to restore supply of 7 kg rice to BPL card holders.

These, the losing legislators, said were the biggest contributing factors for their defeat in the elections.

All this came about at the introspection meeting of MLAs and defeated candidates that the saffron party held on Thursday, after nearly month since the election
results.

Congress campaigns

The new MLAs almost unanimously agreed that the BJP under Bommai failed to counter the Congress party’s ‘40% sarkara, PayCM’ campaigns and guarantee schemes.

Also highlighted was the failure on the part of the state BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel to build an effective narrative for the party and a counter-narrative to the Congress at the grassroots level.

Bommai’s gambit of according internal reservations to SCs, enhancing reservations to SC, STs, Vokkliagas and Lingayats did not work, it was felt at the meeting.

Sections of the defeated and the winning candidates felt that the move to sideline first rung leaders - former CMs B S Yediyurappa and Jagadish Shettar, besides former minister K S Eshwarappa sent a wrong message to their respective communities.

The possibility of a Brahmin CM if the BJP were to get a majority that the rival parties put forth also caused severe damage to the party, it was opined at the meeting.

It was ‘repentance time’ for a section of the defeated MLAs. They were the ones who had defected to the BJP from the Congress. They lamented that they were ‘paying the price for the greed to be in power’.

At least two former Congress MLAs told DH that they faced a double whammy in their constituencies - the wrath of the Congress voters for defecting and the ire of hardcore BJP leaders, who felt that the migrants had robbed their chances to get tickets.

A former minister told DH that he lost solely due to the highhandedness of the district incharge minister.

“Neither did he help us during Covid nor after the pandemic came under control. He did not transfer a single officer I wanted to get rid off. As district incharge minister, he did not allow me to execute some prominent works,” he said.

After the meeting, BJP general secretary C T Ravi told reporters that the party lost due to a ‘negative narrative’ by the Opposition.

He conceded that the defeat was also due to the party’s last-minute efforts to increase reservation to SC/STs, Vokkaligas and Lingayats. “Internal reservation too had its impact,” he said.