Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Aug 7: Reports coming in from New Delhi suggest that national leadership of BJP is disappointed and angry at the fact that the state unit of the party failed to attack state energy minister, D K Shivakumar, after income tax department officials raided his properties.

The party feels that the leaders of the party from the state could have used this occasion to go all out against Shivakumar, to counter the arguments of Congress leaders, who had gone on offensive against BJP, claiming that the central government had plotted this raid to terrorize MLAs from Gujarat camping in the city.

The BJP high command, it is said, noted that only two or three BJP leaders had hit back at the Congress and tried to project Congress as protector of the corrupt. The national leaders of the party have reasons to believe that a few in the state unit having a soft corner for the aggressive energy minister had robbed the party of the opportunity to go full steam ahead and wrest the initiative from Congress.

Amit Shah - BJP's national president

BJP's national president, Amit Shah, is scheduled to visit Karntaka for three days from August 12 onward. He plans to discuss political strategy to highlight failure, corruption and maladministration on the part of the state government on which the party will base its campaigning against the Congress on the run up to next year's assembly election.

There is a bitter feeling that the state unit's reaction to the raid was lukewarm, taking into account the fact that Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has been aggressive in tackling black money and corruption. The central leadership is not too satisfied with lackluster handling of the issue, failure to thoroughly prepare ground for attack, and failure to strongly support the central government's action against the money by deputing able leaders during television debates.

There is a feeling that Karnataka BJP leaders failed to convince people that income tax raids happened during the holing up of Gujarat MLAs in a resort at Bidadi purely out of coincidence. The leaders did not rest their arguments by pointing out that the officials went only after Shivakumar, nor MLAs, as alleged by Congress.

The leadership, it is said, had even noticed in the past the disinterestedness shown by BJP leaders to bring to the fore murky deals involving Siddaramaiah, which could have helped the party in a big way. It noted with concern that JD(S) leaders were more vocal in supporting this raid although BJP is the main opposition in Karnataka.

It is gathered that sometime back, BJP national leaders had criticized the state leaders for failing to pursue Arkavathy Layout land denotification issue and cash in on it to prove government's corrupt practices till it reached a logical conclusion.