The inability of the BJP to pick its legislature party leader two months after the Karnataka election results has made the party a butt of jokes and left many of its members befuddled.

Even after national-level intervention, the principal Opposition party is without its floor leader two months after Congress registered a thumping victory and galloped back to power in the state.

This prompted chief minister Siddaramaiah to take a jibe on whether the BJP was waiting for someone to join the party before it could elect its leader.

“I suspect that you are waiting for someone to join your party so that you can appoint him as the leader of the Opposition,” Siddaramaiah told the party in the Assembly on Thursday.

The chief minister even reminded the saffron party that it was without a leader even when he presented the state budget. “I feel it’s the first time the state budget has been presented without a leader of the Opposition,” he said in the House.

Congress lawmaker Laxman Savadi, who had quit the BJP on being denied a party ticket in the recent elections, attributed the frequent interruptions from the Opposition benches as an effort to grab the national leadership’s attention to get picked as the leader of the Opposition.

Internal squabbles and blame-game following the electoral defeat despite projecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its face and getting him to campaign in the state and conduct roadshows are said to be the key reasons behind the BJP’s failure to to elect its leader.

Too many candidates for the spot, including former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai, R. Ashoka, Basangouda Patil Yatnal and Arvind Bellad, point at the fact that the BJP is a divided house in Karnataka.

Dharwad MLA Bellad was one of the probables to replace B.S. Yediyurappa after the latter was forced to resign as the chief minister in 2021.

A state BJP functionary expressed disappointment at the delay and blamed it on continuing differences. “Many of us are so dejected that we don’t even talk about it anymore. Just look at the way we are allowing the Congress to poke fun at us in the Assembly over this issue,” he said, alluding to the jibes by Siddaramaiah, Savadi and others.

“Even the central observers who came here with the hope of solving this issue returned without any sign of a solution,” he said, alluding to last week’s visit by Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya and party leader from Maharashtra Vinod Tawde.

“They have apparently submitted a report to the high command but no decision has been made yet. This indecisiveness doesn’t boost the confidence of the cadres after the election defeat,” he cautioned, citing how some leaders have also been squabbling openly.