Dismayed and distraught at their leader S Angara, Sullia MLA, being omitted from Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa’s Cabinet, 150 BJP workers including taluk office bearers in Dakshina Kannada's Sullia taluk have submitted their resignations as a mark of protest
Bengaluru: The script is the same, but the participants are different.
Karnataka politics sees another episode of dissatisfaction, disgruntlement and dissonance. But this time, it is with the BJP.
As the chief minister announced his first set of ministers in his Cabinet, frayed tempers have set in. As many as 150 BJP workers including taluk office bearers in Dakshina Kannada's Sullia taluk have submitted their resignations.
But why?
Well, that is because, BJP MLA S Angara, from Sullia constituency, has not been made a part of the Cabinet.
MyNation repeatedly tried speaking to the MLA to get his reaction on the issue, but the phone remained switched off.
He was quoted as saying, “It is hurtful that my constituents have been loyal towards BJP for so many years and yet their representative is not been given a ministerial berth.”
Angara has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since 1992. He has continuously won from the Sullia constituency on a BJP ticket since first contesting in 1994. Interestingly, even when the district considered as BJP bastion lost six of the eight seats to the Congress in the 2013 Assembly poll, Sullia was the only seat that was retained by the party owing to Angara’s popularity.
Later, in the year 2018, in state election, Sullia polled highest voter turnout in Dakshina Kannada of 83.8% and Angara continued his winning streak with a margin of 26,068 votes.
Though Nalin Kumar Kateel was named as the president of the state BJP, who is from Dakshina Kannada, tempers are still high. The lone man inducted into Yediyurappa’s Cabinet is Kota Srinivas Poojary, an MLC from Udupi.
Sullia BJP Mandal Samithi, Venkat Valalambe, was quoted as saying, "Apart from being declared as a ‘reserved’ (Scheduled Tribe constituency) constituency in 1962, representatives from Sullia have not been given their due share of credit in the state Cabinet. Where is the social inclusiveness and equality?”
At the time of filing this article, chief minister Yediyurappa is in New Delhi, to have extensive discussions with the BJP top brass, over portfolio allocation.
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