Bangalore:
Despite pressure by B S Yeddyurappa to BJP over chief ministership, party president Nitin Gadkari has ruled out any change in guard. Addressing a press conference, Mr Gadkari said Sadananda Gowda will continue as Karnataka Chief Minister.
Yeddyurappa has given an ultimatum to BJP president Nitin Gadkari demanding that by February 27, he be reinstated as chief minister or given a senior post in the party.
Yesterday evening, the former chief minister held a show of strength with more than 50 MLAs arriving at his home; he is also reportedly unhappy with the present Chief Minister Sadanand Gowda.
Here are the top 10 developments in the case:
1) The BJP, which is holding its Chintan Manthan, cancelled the second day of its meeting. Officially, the duration of the meeting has been curtailed because the BJP leaders want to campaign for Udipi-Chikmangalur Assembly bypolls scheduled for March. But sources say that the decision has been taken because the Yeddyurappa faction was threatening to boycott the second day of the meeting.
2) Yeddyurappa met Mr Gadkari, who is in Bangalore, before the start of the meeting today where he served an ultimatum, setting February 27 as a deadline to the party's central leadership to reinstate him as chief minister. Mr Yeddyurappa also told the BJP president that he went to jail for 25 days for "no fault of mine". Mr Gadkari asked him to be patient.
3) Adding to the woes of the BJP, Yeddyurappa convened a meeting of legislators at his residence yesterday, and exhorted his supporters to exert pressure on the party leadership to make him chief minister again. The meeting called by Mr Yeddyurappa to showcase his strength was attended by more than 50 MLAs in the 122-member BJP legislature party besides MLCs and MPs.
4) Mr Yeddyurappa turns 69 on February 27 and has extended invitation to all his supporting legislators to attend a lunch hosted by him on that day.
5) While his meeting was on, fresh summons were issued to him by the Lokayukta court in a dubious land denotification deal - just one among several cases against him.
6) However, the BJP's top leadership has denied that there is any problem in the Karnataka unit of the party. Senior party leader Arun Jaitley today said that there is no crisis in Karnataka. "Whatever the media is attributing to Yeddyurappa is not the actual situation."
7) Karnataka's Health Minister Ram Das too told NDTV that Yeddyurappa is no headache for the BJP as projected by media. He is only a big support. He also said that there is no 'ultimatum' he has only expressed his feelings.
8) Mr Yeddyurappa was forced to resign more than six months ago after a Lokayukta report indicted him on illegal mining, and has in recent weeks been making vigorous behind-the-scenes efforts to regain the chief ministership.
9) Yeddyurappa was jailed in October last year after being arrested for two different cases that involved him using his office as Chief Minister to make prime property available to his children and their spouses at phenomenal bargains. He was released from Bangalore's Central Prison after 25 days after.
10) BJP leaders, however, do not seem in any hurry to remove Yeddyurappa's successor and present Chief Minister , Sadananda Gowda. Mr Gowda, too, asserted that there is no leadership change. "I will present the Budget. There is no doubt in it," he said.