Rejecting speculation that Housing Minister V Somanna might quit the BJP ahead of the Assembly polls in the state, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday said he is with the party and will remain with it.
Speculation has been rife for some time now that Somanna, who is said to be unhappy and was considering leaving the BJP and joining the Congress, the party he had quit in 2009.
"We are old friends, we are constantly having discussions....he is with us and will remain with us, there is no need for any speculation," Bommai told reporters in response to a question about his meeting Somanna. The CM further said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visits to Karnataka have been bringing people towards BJP and he claimed that a kind of Modi tsunami is being witnessed in the state.
The non-inclusion of Somanna, a senior Minister in the BJP's election campaign committee and the election management committee, had added to the talk that he may quit the party.
Somanna, an MLA from Govindrajnagar in Bengaluru, had recently made cryptic comments about his political future.
"Somanna is not stagnant water. He's flowing...," he had told reporters recently.
However, he had also said that he hasn't spoken anything about quitting the BJP while admitting he had raised some issues with the party leadership.
Somanna, a five-time MLA, has reportedly been sulking over allegedly being sidelined in party affairs, and also because the BJP was unlikely to give a ticket to his son in the upcoming polls.
Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is visiting almost all parts of the state and the affection of the people towards him and the BJP is being seen everywhere, Bommai to a question said, in a way, there is a strong "Modi tsunami" in the state.
In his sixth visit to the southern state this year, Modi on Sunday tried to give fresh momentum to the ruling BJP's bid for a successive term, even as rival Congress has been mounting an aggressive attack on its saffron rival on issues including corruption.
(With PTI inputs)