BENGALURU:  After threatening to quit the MLA post and going AWOL (absent without leave) for a week to ‘plan the future course of action’ and resurfacing in Gokak last Thursday, former Congress minister Ramesh Jarkiholi today finds that he has nowhere to go.

The reason behind the failure of his coup, sources say, is BJP national president Amit Shah. His strict no to BJP State leadership’s attempt to bring Ramesh and a few other Congress MLAs on board forced Jarkiholi to return to Karnataka wounded.  For two days, sources said, Ramesh, R Shankar, an independent MLA who was dropped from the cabinet, B Nagendra and BC Patil, both ministerial berth aspirants, waited in Delhi for a meeting with Shah, but to no avail.

Not only did the BJP chief refuse to meet the rebel MLAs, he even gave state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa a dressing down for “wasting his time” when the unit should have ideally been prepping for the Lok Sabha elections. Sources in both parties say that Shah never gave an appointment to meet Yeddyurappa along with the rebel Congress MLAs, making his stand clear, upsetting Ramesh.

In the game of numbers, neither Yeddyurappa nor Ramesh could muster enough to either impress the BJP central leadership or upset the Congress-JD(S) coalition government, leaving them both red-faced.  What went wrong? After Ramesh vowed to make matters worse for the Congress, he found support in fellow legislators like B C Patil. The rebel leaders were hopeful of meeting Shah in Delhi to take the next step. 

Yeddyurappa who wasted no time, promptly landed in Delhi to secure a meeting with Shah. Yeddyurappa first approached senior party leader Arun Jaitley. Citing parliamentary session and a busy schedule, Jaitley is said to have asked Yeddyurappa to talk to Shah directly.“The meeting never happened. Shah did not give Yeddyurappa an audience at all because he was tired of the way things had been unfolding over the last few months. The central leadership clearly has had enough of the way state BJP has gone about attempting to form the government time and again, embarrassing itself,” said a BJP source.

Shah, who is said to have chided Yeddyurappa for lining up less than half a dozen legislators every time in an attempt to form the government, asked him to parade 15 legislators before Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. “Else do not waste your time and mine,” Shah is said to have told him.A hopeful Yeddyurappa was turned away, with Shah insisting that he concentrate on Lok Sabha elections first. “Shah was irate with the fact that the state leadership had failed to draw up names of aspirants, probable candidates and best bets in all the 28 constituencies,” said another source in the know of matters. 

Shah’s refusal to even meet him and the legislators supporting him came as a blow to Ramesh -- who barely a week earlier was confident of shocking the Congress. The Congress’ smart move to accommodate most troublemakers in the cabinet and boards and corporations further meant that Ramesh wouldn’t get the kind of support he hoped for. “Ramesh went to Delhi with a lot of hope since he was promised the Deputy Chief Minister position. Even Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, before going away for his New Year vacation, asked Ramesh to apply his mind and see  if the BJP can accommodate him in any position when there are tall leaders from his community as well as from the region already in that party,” said a Congress party source.

An already agitated Ramesh was further embarrassed after Shah refused to meet him. The constant media attention on ‘operation Kamala’, Ramesh was told, was the reason Shah didn’t want to run a risk with barely months to go for the Lok Sabha elections. Shah now wants the state unit to concentrate on making the BJP’s rally in Tumakuru a success. For Ramesh, whose rebellion never took off, the Congress high command has shown the cold shoulder, unwilling to give him or his tantrums any importance.