New Delhi:
Hours after BS Sriramulu, a close aide of the jailed mining baron Janardhan Reddy, re-joined the BJP on Friday, senior party leader Sushma Swaraj went public with her opposition.
"I want to make it absolutely clear that B.Sriramulu has been admitted in the party despite my stiff opposition," she tweeted in the evening.
Mr Sriramulu had left BJP and formed the BSR Congress after differences with the party leadership over corruption allegations against him.
Ms Swaraj had been very close to Mr Sriramulu and the wealthy mining barons of Bellary - the Reddy brothers. But she distanced herself when corruption allegations were made against Janardhan Reddy and had opposed their entry into the BJP.
BJP sources say Ms Swaraj's objection was discussed in the party's parliamentary board meeting yesterday, but party president Rajnath Singh and its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi decided to re-induct Mr Sriramulu. The proposal of his party's merger was dropped given Ms Swaraj's opposition.
The BJP top leaders said no to merger and yes to his entry to facilitate a BJP ticket to him from the Bellary Lok Sabha seat. Karnataka BJP chief Prahlad Venkatesh Joshi told NDTV on Thursday, "The BJP unit had proposed that Mr Sriramulu should be given a ticket from Bellary constitutency."
The seat is currently held by the BJP - Mr Sriramulu's sister, Shantha, is the sitting MP.
With her tweet, Ms Swaraj has not only gone public on an internal party rift, but also challenged publicly a decision taken by the BJP's top decision-making body. Sources say Ms Swaraj's public dissent raises the odds against Mr Sriramulu getting a ticket from Bellary.
But despite Ms Swaraj's objection, Mr Sriramulu seems to bear no grudge against her. "She is my mother and will remain my mother until my death. In a family, there is sometimes anger. The seniors may become angry. We should request them - and I will go and request her, if I have done any wrong, please forgive me," he told NDTV.
In Mr Sriramulu's re-induction, the BJP is clearly looking at vote-catchers after their dismal performance in Assembly elections held last year. Mr Sriramulu, who wields influence over the Valmiki community, is expected to give incremental value to BJP in the districts of Bellary, Gadag, Koppal and Chitradurga. His BSR Congress had won four Assembly seats in the May 8 polls last year.