Bengaluru, DHNS: Yeddyurappa says Dalit leader will help strengthen party base.Former minister and Dalit leader V Srinivas Prasad will join the BJP on January 2 in Bengaluru.

This was announced by both BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa and Prasad. Yeddyurappa met Prasad, a former Congress leader, at his house in Bengaluru and formally invited him to join the party.

Prasad would be the BJP candidate for the byelection to the Nanjangud Assembly constituency, which is reserved for Scheduled Castes. The seat fell vacant following Prasad’s resignation as MLA in October. The election commission is yet to announce the date for the bypoll.

The senior Congress leader came out of the Congress after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah dropped him from the Cabinet as revenue minister. Siddaramaiah had not assigned any specific reason for sacking the senior leader.

Prasad told reporters he was joining the BJP without any pre-conditions.

“I have no ambitions to nurture after being in politics for 45 years. I had made this clear to Siddaramaiah. All I wanted was to complete my term of five years as MLA. I want to complete the rest of the term as mandated by my voters. Hence, I am going to face the bypoll. The election would be reduced to a fight between me and Siddaramaiah.”

Asked whether he would be a candidate in 2018 Assembly elections too, Prasad said it was too early to discuss it.

“The challenge before me is to win the byelection. I will focus on that for now. I have told Yeddyurappa that I am not eyeing any post. For me, my self-esteem is important. Siddaramaiah, after taking so much help from me, betrayed me. He unceremoniously removed me as minister. I had never been humiliated so badly in my career. It is important for me to fight back. During the election campaign, I will announce whether I will face the elections in 2018,” he said.

Yeddyurappa said Prasad was scheduled to join the party at a programme in the presence of party national president Amit Shah in November. But it did not materialise.

“Recently, in Nanjangud, I had announced that Prasad would be our candidate. This I did without seeking his consent. Prasad’s entry would help the party strengthen its base. He would be our candidate from Nanjangud. He will win. He will face no problem from the party.”

Prasad said the Congress is having a tough time getting a suitable candidate to face the byelection.

“It was said that Minister H C Mahadevappa’s son Sunil Bose would be the candidate. Why shouldn’t Mahadevappa himself contest? If it was not a reserved constituency, I would have challenged Siddaramaiah to enter the fray.”

The Congress is yet to finalise its candidate. The JD(S) had announced that it would support Prasad if he contests as an Independent.