Elections for Maharashtra and Karnataka BJP chief are giving headache to the party top brass. While Maharashtra is caught in a turf war between arch rivals Nitin Gadkari and Gopinath Munde, the party also struggles to find a consensus candidate in Karnataka.
The southern State will go to polls next month while the Maharashtra unit chief will lead the party to election in November next year.
There was an agreement between various factions to allow a second term to incumbent Maharashtra unit chief Sundhir Mungatiwar, a Gadkari loyalist. With Gadkari’s ouster as BJP chief in January, Munde is now pressing for a change of guard.
“Munde feels he has been sidelined in Maharashtra BJP for the last six years — during Gadkari’s three year tenure as State Chief and the next three years as national president. He wants to assert himself to send a message across to his loyalists that he remains a important leader,” said a BJP source.
Munde had suggested names of the Assembly’s leader of Opposition Eknath Khadse and MlA Devendra Fadnavis as replacement to Mungantiwar. Both Khadse and Fadnavis are close to Gadkari but have opted out, adding to complications.
“Munde might now pitch himself for the State BJP chief’s post. Before Gadkari’s elevation, an understanding was reached between the two that Munde will be the leader of the party in the State and Gadkari at the centre,” sources said.
BJP leadership is worried that Munde’s return to State politics will create a vacancy to the post of party’s Deputy leader in lok Sabha, triggering another rush among second generation leaders in the lower House of Parliament.
Similarly, former Karnataka Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, BJP leadership choice for the post of state unit chief, faces opposition from a section of state leaders. A Vokkaliga, Gowda suits the local caste equations dominated by lingayats. Deputy CM R Ashoka, another Vokkaliga leader , is another claimant.
Sources claimed, Gowda will have to be accommodated in the national team if he is denied the State BJP chief’s post. The possibility of Gowda not getting reins of the party in the State arises from the fact that Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar is lobbying for Govind M Karjol, his Cabinet colleague from Bagalkot.
Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel is preferred choice of the local RSS leadership while Dharward MP Prahlad Joshi is also a claimant. “Organisational elections are also to be completed in Chhattisgarh. The CM wants the present arrangement to continue till Assembly elections later this year,” said a source.