Bangalore:
BJP leader, and former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today claimed that the party's central leadership had promised to reinstate him as chief minister in six months when he was asked to step down last year after the Lokayukta report on illegal mining indicted him.
"I did not aspire for the chief minister's post. Since the central leadership promised to reinstate me as chief minister after six months, I visited Delhi (on earlier occasions) to restore my lost chair," he told a meeting in Bangalore convened by the Backward Class Forum on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
Mr Yeddyurappa, who was rebuffed by party chief Nitin Gadkari last week when he ruled out any change in leadership of Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, said he would not
attend the BJP Core Committee meeting convened to resolve the issue of leadership change on March 3 in Delhi. "I will not go to Delhi asking for chief minister's chair... I don't want it," he said.
Instead of visiting Delhi, Mr Yeddyurappa said, he would undertake a statewide tour soon to strengthen the party. "I want BJP to grow more stronger. I would work towards it," he said.
Mr Yeddyurappa, who had earlier set February 27 as the deadline for his reinstatement, said there was no question of him "deserting the party", amid reports that he was toying
with the idea of breaking away from the BJP.
Slamming opposition parties, Yeddyurappa said Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) had not stopped attacking him even after he was in jail. "I was the first chief minister in the country to have stopped illegal mining in the state, and despite that the opposition parties are relentlessly attacking me," he said. Criticising JDS leaders -- former prime minister H D Deve
Gowda and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy -- Mr Yeddyurappa said he would not allow BJP to join hands with father-son duo's party.
Mr Yeddyurappa also flayed Governor H R Bhardwaj saying he had tried dislodging the BJP government thrice. "I will not bow to any kind of pressure from any quarter," he said.