JOIN USBSY ups pressure on party through another B'day bash
Former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa and his supporters plan to organise in Hubli on Sunday his second birthday bash in a fortnight, but the central leadership of the BJP is in no mood to concede his demand for reinstatement until he is cleared of all the court cases.
Basavaraj Bommai and Jagadish Shettar, the Lingayat ministers hailing from North Karnataka and supporters of Yeddyurappa, have taken the lead in organising a ‘felicitation’ function for the former chief minister, who completed 69 years on February 27, and has already had a show of strength organised in Bangalore on his birthday. Thousands of party workers are being mobilised to converge at the venue in Hubli to make the programme a success. Yeddyurappa was hoping that after the Karnataka High Court quashed an FIR filed against him in the mining bribery case, the party would reward him again with chief ministership.
While Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda has made it clear that there is no question of vacating his seat now as Yeddyurappa still had a few more cases pending against him, the BJP central leaders have also indicated that they had no plans to reinstate Yeddyurappa in a hurry.
The Hubli bash is being attended by about a dozen ministers hailing from North Karnataka, who depend on Yeddyurappa’s hold on the electorate for their re-election, though a majority of them still swear by the party. State BJP president K S Eshwarappa, who had been invited to the function, left for Bijapur to attend a wedding. Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda, who is campaigning for the party candidate in the by-election to the Lok Sabha from the Chikmagalur-Udupi constituency, till late on Saturday night would not commit his presence at convention. “Hectic campaign for the election is on. I will try to make it to Hubli,” he told reporters in Bangalore, before proceeding on tour.
Dharmendra Pradhan, in-charge of party affairs of Karnataka, flew to Bangalore and had a long meeting with Yeddyurappa.
It is not yet clear whether he would make it to Hubli. Pradhan has been despatched by party president Nitin Gadkari to convince Yeddyurappa not to make any hasty move, it is learnt.
Yeddyurappa and his followers want the former chief minister to regain his position before the budget session of the Assembly starting next week.
However, Gadkari and other central leaders have repeatedly told them that the party was averse to taking the ‘risk’ of reinstating him as he still faced several charges, some of them very serious in nature, including cases pertaining to denotification of land.
The party is also closely monitoring the Supreme Court appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC)’s decision on conducting a CBI investigation into the donation received by a trust owned by Yeddyurappa’s family members from mining companies.
The CEC is likely to submit its recommendation to the apex court’s green bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia on March 16. In its affidavit submitted to the CEC, the Karnataka government had said that the CBI investigation was not required.