BSY takes battle to rebels' camp

BANGALORE: After storming into a meeting of dissident MLAs late on Wednesday night and catching them red-handed, chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has organised a trial of strength at his residence on Friday.
The morning meeting of legislators has put the rebels in a quandary. If they boycott it, they will earn the dissident tag; attending the meeting will amount to going back on their vow to oust Yeddyurappa.The CM, who has survived two rebellions in the past 33 months, is betting on the dissidents giving up their resolve.
After raising the banner of revolt — with tacit support from state BJP president K S Eshwarappa — the dissidents have decided to go slow for now. They are citing the April 9 bypoll to three constituencies caused by Operation Lotus.
Yeddyurappa, who was in Gadag the whole of Thursday, delegated the responsibility of coaxing MLAs to attend the meeting to his trusted ministers Murugesh R Nirani, Lakshman Savdi, M P Renukacharya and Basavaraj Bommai. The legislators have been asked to stay in Bangalore for the next couple of days.
While the rebels made the state BJP headquarters in Malleswaram the centre of their activities, co-operation minister Savdi’s office on the second floor of Vidhana Soudha became a hub for Yeddyurappa loyalists. Savdi and Renukacharya were busy calling MLAs and reminding them of Friday’s meeting.
The BJP has 107 MLAs, including the speaker. Of these, about 50 MLAs assembled at the BJP office to chalk out the ‘Oust Yeddyurappa’ strategy. A section sang a different tune on Thursday: that they were at the party office to discuss party affairs.
“Dissidence should not affect our party’s candidates in the by-elections. This movement was abrupt, not planned,’’ an MLA close to Eshwarappa said.
Sources in the Yeddyurappa camp said he has met the long-pending demand of the Reddys that the Bellary-Hospet road work be given on a contract basis. The road has been planned as a public-private partnership at a cost of Rs 5 crore for 1 km. An assurance has also been reportedly given to the Reddys that some fresh mining permits would be sanctioned.
Though Eshwarappa has admitted there is dissatisfaction among MLAs, Yeddyurappa has dismissed the rebellion as a creation of the media.