New Delhi:
Former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa is set to reunite with the BJP a year after he walked out of the party alleging betrayal.
Sources have told NDTV that the BJP will send a formal invitation to Mr Yeddyurappa asking him to merge his Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) with his former party.
Mr Yeddyurappa's return to the fold ahead of the national election due by May, has been speculated ever since Narendra Modi was named the BJP's presumptive PM in September.
The 70-year-old politician is a known loyalist of the Gujarat Chief Minister and had declared that he should be the prime ministerial candidate over party veteran LK Advani, who led a section in the BJP that insisted Mr Yeddyurappa resign as CM over charges of corruption.
A powerful leader from the influential Lingayat community, Mr Yeddyurappa won the BJP its first government in south India six years ago. But he quit his party of 40 years after he was forced to step down as Chief Minister in the middle of his term over a slew of corruption charges in mining deals.
After several failed attempts at resurrection within the BJP, he floated his own outfit with fellow rebels and contested the May assembly elections in Karnataka on his own.
Mr Yeddyurappa and the BJP soon realized that they were lost without each other. Both were routed in the polls that saw the Congress return to power after seven (do check) years.
Mr Modi had hinted that "friends" like Mr Yeddyurappa should be brought back to the party ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. In November, two days before Mr Modi's mega rally in Bangalore, many posters surfaced featuring Mr Yeddyurappa and Mr Modi together.