More pitch in to take credit for Karnataka

When a Karnataka delegate walked up to Sushma Swaraj to ask why she stayed away from Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa’s...

When a Karnataka delegate walked up to Sushma Swaraj to ask why she stayed away from Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa’s swearing-in ceremony in Bangalore last week, she replied: “I have done my job (campaigning in the state). You distribute sweets in Bangalore and I will do the same here in Delhi.”

While party general secretary Arun Jaitley has been feted for crafting the party’s victorious campaign in Karnataka, other leaders are learnt to have said that due credit should have been accorded to them as well. A senior leader described the phenomenon as “healthy competition” amongst the party’s second-rung leadership, but the first day of the BJP national executive showed that there was only a thin line between “competing leaders” and “factions”.

When party president Rajnath Singh spoke on Karnataka, he mentioned the names of Yeddyurappa, Karnatata BJP president Sadanand Gowda, general secretary Ananth Kumar, state prabhari (in charge) “for the past one year” and vice-president Yashwant Sinha and Arun Jaitley who as “the election prabahari went there to efficiently manage the elections”.

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In an interview with this paper last week, Yeddyurappa had thanked Jaitley — saying “but for his campaign strategy, 110 seats would have been difficult” — and Rajnath Singh — “for giving me Jaitley as prabhari”. On Sunday, however, Yeddyurappa thanked everyone but his archrival Ananth Kumar.

Rajnath also devoted some words to congratulate Sinha for leading an “extremely successful movement” during the recent jail bharo agitation by the Jharkhand unit.