BJP State leaders summoned to Delhi over cross-voting

BJP national president Nitin Nabin has summoned the party’s State unit president B.Y. Vijayendra, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashok, and in-charge of party affairs in the State Radha Mohan Das Agarwal to Delhi on June 23 over cross-voting in the just-concluded Legislative Council elections in Karnataka.

The party high command has expressed its unhappiness with the development, and this may lead to a revamp of the State leadership, multiple sources in the party said.

The State unit on Friday formed a fact-finding committee under the leadership of C.T. Ravi, MLC, to identify cross-voters, since these polls are a secret ballot. N. Mahesh and Mahesh Tenginakayi are members of the committee. Sources in the party said the high command will also take independent reports from other leaders.

In a significant departure to the party’s stand on Thursday, Mr. Vijayendra on Friday pegged the number of cross-voters from the party at “four to five”. Mr. Ashok had said it was three on Thursday. This implies that some of the BJP MLAs allocated to the JD(S) candidate also cross-voted. 

Meanwhile, Chandru Lamani, Shirahatti BJP MLA, one of those allocated to vote for the JD(S) candidate, claimed that he and Krishna Nayaka, another MLA, had “honestly” voted for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate. “A section of the media unfairly speculated that we may have cross-voted. This has embarrassed us in our constituencies,” he said.

‘Creating division’

Mr. Vijayendra said the Congress was trying to speculate on the names of cross-voters from the BJP to create divisions within the party. “There is no question of sparing those who betrayed the party and cross-voted. They cannot hide forever. The fact-finding committee will uncover them and subsequent to that, the party will take stringent action,” he said.

BJP candidate Lingaraj Patil, who was allocated 30 MLA votes, got only 27, clearly indicating three cross-voters from the party. However, BJP had allocated four votes, including of Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, expelled MLA, who had announced support to the BJP. But, he was allocated the JD(S) candidate. But the candidate polled only 14 votes, as against 18 JD(S) MLAs. While JD(S) concedes that four of their MLAs cross-voted and they did not get BJP votes, the BJP on Thursday maintained that their votes were indeed transferred, implying eight from the JD(S) cross-voted. However, Mr. Vijayendra has now pegged it at “four to five”. 

BJP ‘factionalism’

Meanwhile, the BJP is more worried about the three MLAs — of the 30 allocated for party candidate Lingaraj Patil — who cross-voted. Mr. Patil did not get the adequate 28 votes and won only in the elimination round.

Sources said that while R. Raghu (Kautilya) was the candidate from one faction, Mr. Patil from Hubballi was from the opposite faction. The BJP fielded V. Nagaraj, also from Hubballi, in the Rajya Sabha elections, to fill a seat vacated by Iranna B. Kadadi from Belagavi. This prompted party leaders from the district to seek a MLC seat for the district.

However, the MLC seat also went to Hubballi. The dominance of this faction in both Rajya Sabha and MLC election candidate selection did not go down well with many, which could have played out in the elections, sources said.