Yeddyurappa embarks on drought tour

To understand the plight of drought hit people with an eye on next assembly elections former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa started his drought tour Tuesday from Tumkur visiting Sri Siddaganga matt. Chief minister Jagadish Shetter and his deputy K S Eshwarappa too accompanied him along with many ministers and senior leaders of the party.

The BJP leaders visited about 20 villages in Tumkur district, where Yeddyurappa visited Goshalas (cowsheds) and examined the facilities being provided there.

But BJP’s national general secretary Anantha Kumar and former chief minister of Karnataka DV Sadananda Gowda, both political rivals of BS Yeddyurappa stayed away from this tour. It is said that many factions in BJP do not want to give official status to Yeddyurappa trip. But Yeddyurappa is able to get High command nod for his trip and made it official party tour.

“People gave the mandate to the BJP when it went to the polls under my leadership. Now it is my duty to visit them and know their problems when they are reeling under a serious drought. Though I wanted to do it much earlier, there were court restrictions on my moving out of Bangalore. I was almost under a house arrest. Since, the travel restrictions have now been lifted, I have decided to visit them.” Yeddyurappa told media.

To stop misuse of drought aid Yeddyurappa asked the government to constitute district-level fact-finding committees comprising experts from agricultural universities and local organizations to make sure the drought relief would effectively reach the beneficiaries.

Everybody knows, including the high command and his rivals, that intentions behind the Yeddyurappa’s tour is to take control over the party’s rank and project himself as a real leader in BJP state unit. Since he is facing several corruption charges and is being grilled by the CBI, BJP high command had several times denied him of any key posts, including Chief Minister and President of BJP state unit. Now, with state assembly elections are to be conducted within less than a year, he is preparing strong ground to emerge as the sole leader of BJP in the state whom the high command cannot ignore. The present tour is a part of his larger design in the direction.