The Bharatiya Janata Party has convened a meeting of its central parliament board in New Delhi on Thursday afternoon to take stock of the ongoing power tussle in Karnataka. The meeting will be held at the party headquarters.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will not attend the meeting due to his ailing health. Vajpayee has been advised complete bed rest by his doctors. The senior BJP leader could not attend the BJP National Executive in Bhopal due to the same reason.
The scheduled power transfer in Karnataka seems to be a distant dream for the BJP now, with coalition partner Janata Dal-Secular refusing to hand over the reins of the state. But party president Rajnath Singh is still hopeful that his meeting with JD-S chief Deve Gowda on October 5 will yield positive results.
Singh told mediapersons on Wednesday that he expected the JD-S to honour its commitment and hand over power to deputy chief minister and BJP leader B S Yediyruppa.
On the other hand, Chief Minister Kumaraswamy, who was scheduled to hand over power on October 3, blamed the BJP for trying to force the implementation of the power sharing agreement by rushing to the media instead of talking with the JD-S.
Yediyruppa and other senior leaders from Karnataka are also expected to meet the party high command in New Delhi to discuss the issue.