K'taka crisis: Reddy faction blinks but no solution yet

Vicky Nanjappa provides a fascinating glimpse of the furious political games being played as the BJP top brass tries to resolve the party's ongoing crisis in Karnataka.

Hope emerged for the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday as warring factions of its Karnataka unit seemed to lower their aggressive stance.

Karnataka Tourism Minister Janardhan Reddy, who has been leading the campaign to oust Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa, left for Hyderabad on Friday afternoon to meet his MLAs and discuss the proposal put forth by the party high command.

Reddy had asked his MLAs to remain in a resort in Hyderabad to prevent the Yeddyurappa faction from poaching them.

BJP sources told rediff.com that Reddy sought more time from the high command to discuss this matter with his MLAs. He has assured the high command that he will update them either by Friday night or early Saturday morning.

The sources added that it appeared that Reddy had blinked and was ready to sit down and work out a compromise formula with the Yeddyurappa faction.

Meanwhile, the meeting with the high command did not go too well for the Reddy faction as senior party leaders L K Advani, Rajnath Singh and even their most trusted leader, Sushma Swaraj reiterated that there could not be a leadership change in the state as of now.

Party sources revealed that the high command was particularly tough on the Reddy faction. During the meeting the senior leaders reportedly asked the Reddy faction: 'What do you think? You can just come down and seek a leadership change? The moment you ask for something like this, do you think we can do it overnight? This has not happened in the history of our party. It does not happen in other political parties too.'

When Reddy told Sushma about his MLAs resigning, she urged him to convince them to stay back in the party and give the chief minister a chance. 'If there are any complaints in the future we shall look into it,' she told him.

Further, the senior leaders told Reddy: 'What is the harm in giving Yeddyurappa some more time? Let us give him six months time and see how he performs. If there is no improvement or change, then we will ourselves take a call on the issue. Why don't you give up that demand of changing the CM and speak about the rest of the demands, which we are ready to effect?'

'The CM has agreed to make changes in the Cabinet and has also transferred the Principal Secretary to the CM as per your demand. We are ready to effect all those changes, but a change in leadership is out of the question,' they added.

Reddy then told the high command that he had 55 MLAs with him and that he could not take a decision all by himself. 'I will have to talk to them, consult them and take their opinion,' he reportedly said, adding, 'I need some time to do that. Once I am done, I will return to New Delhi and tell you about what they had to say.'

Meanwhile, Advani is holding a meeting with Yeddyurappa in New Delhi at the moment. Advani is slated to explain to the chief minister about the demands by the Reddy faction and also ask him to keep up the promises he made as part of the compromise formula.

However, it is not clear whether Yeddyurappa would return to Bengaluru or stay on for another day and meet the Reddy faction on Saturday.