Bangalore:
BS Yeddyurappa today made a grand comeback to the BJP, the party he quit a year ago alleging betrayal, with a vow to 'forget the past' and score an impressive victory in Karnataka in the national election, due by May.
"I realise I made a mistake by leaving the party. We will forget the past. I have forgotten that I went to the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP). You please forget that too. We need to cross 20 seats from Karnataka in this Lok Sabha election," said the former chief minister, addressing a sea of supporters at the BJP office in Bangalore.
He declared that he was "100 percent" sure of being cleared of corruption charges.
The BJP's move to bring back the 70-year-old former chief minister despite corruption charges is likely to provoke scrutiny at a time Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have caught public imagination with their anti-corruption campaign.
This morning, the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi talked about rooting out corruption and ensuring that it does not take place in the first place.
Mr Yeddyurappa, who won the BJP its first government in the south six years ago, walked out of the party and formed his own outfit, the KJP, after the BJP refused to reinstate him as chief minister following charges of corruption in the mining scam. But after both the BJP and the KJP failed to make an impact in last year's Karnataka polls, the need to consolidate votes became the dominant concern for both sides.
Mr Yeddyurappa, a powerful leader from the influential Lingayat community, is a known
Modi loyalist and his return was expected ever since Mr Modi was elevated to the party's top face in September.
"The only hope in the country is Narendra Modi," Mr Yeddyurappa said earlier this week. (
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Last year, Mr Yeddyurappa had declared that the Gujarat chief minister should be the prime ministerial candidate over party veteran LK Advani, who had led a section in the BJP that called for his resignation as Chief Minister following charges of corruption in a mining scam.