Bharatiya Janata Party legislators today met to select a successor to outgoing scam-hit chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, with two contenders in the race: Lok Sabha member D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Rural Development Minister Jagadish Shettar.
Yeddyurappa and his supporters were backing Gowda while state BJP chief K. S. Eshwarappa and Lok Sabha member and general secretary H.N. Ananth Kumar and their group are pitching for Shettar.
Hailing from coastal Karnataka, Sadananda Gowda belongs to the Vokkaliga community, which the Deve Gowda family claims to represent. The Vokkaligas, an agricultural caste, hold sway in the southern districts, and the BJP may see Sadananda Gowda supported by Yeddyurappa a killer combination that brings together the two big vote banks of Karnataka.
Sadananda Gowda is known for his honesty, and that attribute may help the BJP recover some of its dignity in a post-scandal situation. He is now the state BJP president. He has little to no experience in administration.
Gowda, a two-term lawmaker in the state legislative assembly earlier (1994-2004), was also the ruling party's state unit president and led the BJP to power in the state for the first time in the April-May 2008 mid-term assembly poll.
Scam-hit B.S. Yeddyurappa, who resigned as the Bharatiya Janata Party's first chief minister in Karnataka, insisted on Lok Sabha member DV Sadananda Gowda as his successor.
'I have proposed Sadananda Gowda for the post of the new chief minister. It is for the party's high command to decide. I hope Gowda will be acceptable to all,' Yeddyurappa said soon after submitting his resignation letter to state Governor HR Bhardwaj at Raj Bhavan amid high drama and a sudden downpour.
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