Belagavi: While BJP Member of Parliament, Prabhakar Kore recently accused former minister and Chikkodi MP , Prakash Hukkeri, of playing “water politics” even as farmers battled a drought, the Congress leader has now hit back with a claim of his own.
Mr Hukkeri alleged on Friday that Mr Kore was conspiring with Lingayat MPs from the state to remove Mr Pralhad Joshi as president of the state BJP.
“Mr Kore is in discussions with Lingayat MPs of his party in New Delhi to get a Lingayat leader installed as the BJP's president in Karnataka and remove Mr Joshi, who is a Brahmin,” he claimed, also coming down hard on the MP for accusing him of falsely taking credit for persuading Maharashtra to release water to the state from its Koyna dam .
Mr Kore had said in Belagavi recently that some leaders like Mr Hukkeri were out for publicity when water had not yet flowed from the Koyna dam to the Krishna river in Karnataka. “A delegation of legislators from the state is slated to meet Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis on April 1 to demand release of water to Karnataka,” he had said.
Noting that water from Maharashtra's Kalamwadi reservoir naturally flowed into the Doodganga river, a tributary of the Krishna, near Chikkodi every March, he charged Mr Hukkeri with making use of this to claim success with the Maharashtra government. The issue of election of a new chief of the state unit of BJP has already triggered a debate within the party and RSS on who should lead the party in the run-up to Assembly polls scheduled to be held in 2018.
While some leaders have scouted for a young turk, as central leaders did in Maharastra ahead of polls in that state two years ago, others including former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa are keen to occupy the top post. Those opposed to Mr Yeddyurappa, including Union minister H N Ananth Kumar and Pralhad Joshi, have tried to scuttle his chances of returning to state politics. This tricky issue was discussed by RSS leaders with party president Amit Shah with most of them expressing the view that a young turk would be able to galvanise party workers and therefore should be appointed the state unit president.
Mr Shah reportedly told RSS leaders that he would take a decision on the new chief of the state unit after next month’s polls in five states.
