DVS, KSE in Delhi to meet senior leaders

Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda and BJP State unit president K S Eshwarappa landed in the national capital on Tuesday night to meet senior leaders amid reports that B S Yeddyurappa has given an ultimatum to the party top brass to reinstate him as the chief minister by January 15.

Gowda, who will relinquish his Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency Lok Sabha seat on Wednesday, will meet BJP national president Nitin Gadkari and senior leaders L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, and discuss the long-pending State Cabinet expansion. Eshwarappa will accompany the chief minister for the meetings. Gowda was elected to the Legislative Council on December 22 and took oath as a member of the Upper House on Tuesday.

Eshwarappa is likely to raise the issue of Yeddyurappa’s “threat” to chalk out the future course of action if his demand was not met by January 15.

It is learnt that the party senior leadership has already told Gowda that he could continue as the chief minister without any fear.

Ruling out change of guard for now, senior party leaders are also learnt to have expressed their unhappiness over Yeddyurappa’s repeated claim on the chief minister’s post despite facing corruption charges.

The party bosses have made it clear to the former chief minister that he has to wait till he gets a clean chit from the court on corruption charges.

The leaders were not impressed with Yeddyurappa’s claim that he was innocent and he was already out of jail on bail.