Senior BJP leader Eshwarappa opts out of Assembly election contest

Senior BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister K S Eshwarappa on Tuesday told the party’s central leadership that he wished to retire from electoral politics and requested it to not consider fielding him from any constituency in the May 10 Karnataka Assembly polls.The decision of the former state unit president, who played a key role along with B S Yediyurappa in building the party in Karnataka over the last four decades, came in the midst of the BJP finalising its list of candidates for the elections.“I wish to voluntarily retire from electoral politics. Hence, it is my request not to consider my name for any constituency for the Assembly elections this time”, the former Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council said in a letter to BJP president J P Nadda.Eshwarappa, who resigned as a minister last year over a corruption charge, expressed his gratitude to the seniors in the party who gave him honourable positions in his 40 years of a political career, right from being a booth-level worker to becoming deputy chief minister.Later, addressing a press conference, he said he had conveyed his desire to senior party leaders including Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, state BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel and Union Minister Pralhad Joshi at the state election committee meeting on April 6 and 7.