Inside story of why BSY’s son has not been declared Varuna candidate as yet

After several weeks of speculation, B S Yeddyurappa publicly announced that his son would not contest from the Varuna constituency. With folded hands, he said that a common man will be fielded and he urged party workers to put in their best efforts to ensure that the BJP candidate wins.

The announcement was followed by violent protests and at least 10 candidates from the Mysuru and Chamarajnagar districts threatened to withdraw their nominations. The BJP went into damage control mode and is rushing Prakash Javadekar and Muralidhar Rao to sort out the problem.

The stage was almost set for Yeddyurappa's son Vijayendra to contest from Varuna. It was touted as a high-profile battle since Siddaramaiah's son, Dr. Yathindra is contesting from that seat. Vijayendra had in fact been campaigning extensively in this constituency before the announcement was made by his father.

Sources say that some within the BJP had complained to the central leadership that the decision regarding Vijayendra had been taken unilaterally. The central leadership was told that Yeddyurappa's son, Raghavendra is already an MLA from Shikharipur. If Vijayendra is also given a ticket, it would convey a wrong message.

The central leadership appears to have taken this into consideration and Vijayendra's name did not figure in the list announced on Monday. The ticket for the Varuna constituency is likely to be given to a Zilla Panchayat member, Sadanand.

The BJP would have some amount of fire-fighting to be done with a banner of revolt being raised by various leaders who are in favour of Vijayendra's candidature. Moreover, the party would have to make an announcement urgently as today is the last date for filing the nominations.