BENGALURU: After failing to poach ruling party MLAs and dislodge the JD(S)-Congress government, the BJP once again fell short of achieving a victory by three votes at the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) mayoral polls.
And for the architect of the entire effort to poach corporators, former deputy chief minister and
Padmanabhanagar MLA R
Ashoka the failure to secure BBMP is seen as a telling blow to his political clout within the party. According to party sources, Ashoka his first effort to secure BBMP council in 2015 now it was the mayoral polls.
“The efforts to win the mayor post for the BJP, this time around, was perhaps his last chance to become a relevant component of the BJP cog and a
Vokkaliga community leader,’’ sources said. It ’s learnt that Ashoka along with Mahadevpura MLA Arvind Limbavali and Bommanhalli MLA Satish Reddy led the charge of ensuring that six corporators— two independents and four JD(S)— will vote with the 122 voters from their own party.
But the BJP lost one of its poached JD(S) corporation after the member ’s party leader convinced her to abstain from the council meeting. This was followed by JD(S), Imran Pasha (Padarayanapura) also changing his mind.
B Z Zameer Ahmad Khan and Congress MLA Ramalinga Reddy to bring back the three JD(S) members, including Pasha, K Devadas and Manjula Narayanswamy. Having secured the four JD(S) corporators, the only thing left for the ruling party was to get back the two independents who had switched sides.
Congress sources said the party had given up on the two independents, with Marathalli corporator Ramesh having already aligned with the BJP and Hoysala Nagar corporator S Anand Kumar also with them.
But, inside the council, as soon as corporators, MLAs and MPs began to assembly, Anand switched sides which led to a ruckus within the house. Officially, the BJP has blamed the “goondaism” of the Congress-JD(S) for their loss.
“We had nothing to lose, and this is not a setback for the party. Yes, serious efforts were made to win the Mayor elections with the help of like-minded corporators from other parties and independents. But the goondaism shown by the Congress and JD(S) in forcefully trying to bring corporators to their side led to an undemocratic election process,” said BJP general secretary and MLC N Ravi Kumar.
