Eye on Assembly elections, Amit Shah heads to K’taka

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 30

Amid signs of trouble in the party’s Gujarat unit, BJP chief Amit Shah is preparing to annex the next state where elections are due — Karnataka. 

Tomorrow — the last day of 2017 — he will be in Bengaluru for a stock-taking meeting with Karnataka BJP leaders. 

The main point on the agenda is expected to be the growing unrest among the rural community, particularly farmers, in the poll-bound state currently ruled by the Congress.

Sources say the farming community is not satisfied with the initiatives of senior BJP leaders on the ongoing Mahadayi river dispute. 

After their meeting with state president and BJP’s chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa, farmers from north Karnataka said they would continue their agitation on the Mahadayi river waters issue.

Shah, it seems, is upset over the way the situation was being handled by party leaders in the state with a large rural and farming population.

He will also review work assigned to MLAs and MLCs on his pet project — booth-level management — allotted in an earlier visit.

Meanwhile, even as Opposition leaders fish in troubled waters of the Gujarat BJP, offering succour to a seemingly unhappy Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, top party leaders here claim that “all is well” there. 

While Nitin Patel has not spoken about his disappointment in public, he is learnt to have dropped many hints to supporters.

The supporters say this is not the first time Nitin Patel is feeling let down by BJP bosses. After former CM Anandiben Patel was asked to put in her papers, Patel was said to be in line for the top post, but Vijay Rupani was chosen instead.