Gadkari turns down BSY demands
BJP president Nitin Gadkari is understood to have given a cold response to former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa’s demand to make him either chief minister or state unit president amid the speculation that the Lingayat leader is showing interest in joining the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
Sources said some of the loyalists of Yeddyurappa are in touch with NCP chief and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in a bid to join his party. Though sources claimed that Yeddyurappa met Pawar during the former’s visit to Mumbai, the NCP denied this.
After campaigning for the Assembly bypoll campaign in the last week of November, Yeddyurappa rushed to Mumbai and stayed there for three days. Though, officially, he claimed he had visited Mumbai to undergo medical tests for throat infection, the purpose of his visit was to meet Pawar, sources said.
Yeddyurappa, who landed in the capital on Tuesday morning, met Gadkari and placed his demand that he be made the president of the State BJP unit or the chief minister. Claiming that he had a strong backing of MLAs and party MPs from the State, he told Gadkari he should be given proper responsibility.
Claiming that he would come out clean in all charges, Yeddyurappa was said to have explained that there was nothing wrong in giving more responsibility to him in the State.
