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Shobha likely to be dropped from Cabinet

 
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), facing a plethora of problems, has decided to refurbish the party set-up and face the next assembly elections in Karnataka under the leadership of Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar.

The decision taken by the core committee on Saturday in Bangalore is contrary to its earlier stand of facing the elections under a collective leadership.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, BJP general secretary Prahlad Joshi said the core committee unanimously decided to project Shettar as its chief ministerial candidate for a second term ahead of the elections.

The party is also likely to get a new president in place of K S Eshwarappa. Left with hardly any choice to take on Opposition parties, the BJP has also decided to bank on Lingayats and north Karnataka for its votes. Shettar is a Lingayat from Dharwad.

 The party feels that projecting Shettar may also help in dividing the vote base of former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa.

The BJP considered Yeddyurappa as the unquestionable leader of Lingayats.
Shettar, Deputy Chief Ministers Eshwarappa (also the party state president) and R Ashoka, party national general secretary in charge of Karnataka Dharmendra Pradhan, and senior leaders Venkaiah Naidu, Ananth Kumar and D V Sadananda Gowda participated in the core committee meeting held at a hotel on the outskirts of Bangalore. 

The decision of the committee will be placed before the parliamentary board of the party in New Delhi. 

While trying its best to rejuvenate the party at the top level, the core committee also decided to drop Energy Minister Shobha Karandlaje.

Shettar is likely to show her the door when he takes up the cabinet expansion to fill two vacant berths caused by the exit of B J Puttaswamy and Sunil Vallyapure.

Shobha Karandlaje, whose loyalty to B S Yeddyurappa is well known, recently said the law and order machinery had collapsed in the State. The government has done nothing to provide security to women even after the Delhi gang-rape incident, she alleged while hinting that she will be quitting the BJP to join the Karnataka Janata Party of Yeddyurappa.

Shettar is learnt to have told Shobha Karandlaje that she cannot criticise the government while she is still a member of the cabinet.