Beleaguered CM rallies his backers

Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday defied pressure mounting on him to resign over alleged land scams, and ruled out stepping down and said he had the support of 120 MLAs.

Yeddyurappa speaking to the reporters on the sidelines of a function declared that there was no alternative to him in the State to become the next Chief Minister.

“The successor to Yeddyurappa is B S Yeddyurappa,” he declared.  In the morning, Yeddyurappa held confabulation over breakfast with his loyalists, including some ministers, at his official residence.

The meeting was seen as an attempt to send a message to the party central leadership, which  is weighing the option of replacing him, that he still enjoyed the confidence of ministers and legislators, not just of Lingayats, but cutting across caste lines.

As many as six ministers, eight legislators and four MPs, participated in the meeting.

Continuing his diatribe against former prime minister and JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda and his son H D Kumaraswamy, who have been levelling charges of land scams against him and his family, Yeddyurappa said he would launch a campaign to expose the “misdeeds” of the JD(S).

Yeddyurappa labelled JD(S) as a party of “looters” and said Gowda and sons were a bane of state politics who had “harassed” several former chief ministers and leaders, including Ramakrishna Hegde, J H Patel and S R Bommai.

“The only alternative is to have a two-party system in the State and ensure that the rest are disbanded,” he added.

Claims ignorance

At the breakfast meeting, Yeddyurappa is learnt to have told his partymen that he had no knowledge of the financial dealings of his sons. 

Yeddyurappa is said to have made a specific reference to the charge that his sons had received Rs 20 crore from a mining firm.

“I had no clue about the deal at all. I am totally innocent””, the chief minister is understood to have told the meeting.

On the dais, Yeddyurappa thundered against Deve Gowda for his reported offer to some BJP MPs from Karnataka to ease the JD(S) attack against the BJP if Yeddyurappa was removed.

“It is shameful for the institution of democracy that such statements have been made in public. Such people must be taught a lesson for taking the confidence of people and getting elected to public office,” he said.