Bengaluru, Mar 9: Senior leader S M Krishna is likely to join BJP either on March 15 or 16 in New Delhi, Disclosing this to reporters after inducting former MP Jayaprakash Hegde into the party on Wednesday, BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa said BJP will grow in strength in Bengaluru and Mandya with Krishna’s entry into the party.
Yeddyurappa had recently met Krishna at his residence in Bengaluru and extended an invitation to him to join the saffron party.
Sources in the party said Krishna was likely to meet BJP national president Amit Shah in Delhi after March 11 and will subsequently join the party. Krishna is also planning to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi before joining the BJP, the sources added.
Yeddyurappa said the BJP is organising a public rally in Udupi on March 18 to mark the induction of Jayaprakash Hegde into the party. He directed the party leaders to utilise the event to showcase the party’s strength in the coastal region. Hegde began his political career in the then undivided Janata Dal. He served as a minister for ports and fisheries between 1994 and 1998. He chose not to associate with either JD(S) or JD(U) in 1999 when the Janata Dal witnessed a split.
He joined the Congress in 2008. The party expelled him in 2015 for contesting from the Udupi-Dakshina Kannada local bodies constituency in the election to the Legislative Council. He did not win the election.
A soft-spoken politician, Hegde, however, chose not to criticise the Congress and its leaders while joining the BJP. He only said he was expelled for pointing out its mistakes.
A three-time MLA from the then Brahmavar constituency, Hegde won the crucial byelection to Udupi-Chikkamagaluru Lok Sabha constituency in 2012 as the Congress candidate. The BJP is planning to consolidate its position in the coastal belt with the help of Hegde ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls.
Former legislator Ratan Singh of Congress also joined BJP. It is not sure whether he would be contesting the 2018 Assembly election or Lok?Sabha poll in 2019.
‘Diary may bring down govt’
Yeddyurappa predicted that the controversy over huge sums of donations reportedly given by some senior ministers to the Congress high command would force the government to go in for early elections in the state.
“Don’t dismiss it as a mere prediction. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will get into deep trouble over the diary issue. The Assembly polls are going to come within next the six months,” he told party workers.
“The donation issue has exposed Congress in the country. Party MLC K Govindaraj has entered details of donations worth about Rs 600 crore given to the Congress high command by the state party leaders in his diary. The chief minister’s family members are the beneficiaries in the Rs 65-crore kickback received for sanctioning the steel flyover project (sic),” he charged.
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