This Article is From Mar 21, 2012

BS Yeddyurappa arrives in Delhi, return as Karnataka Chief Minister likely

BS Yeddyurappa arrives in Delhi, return as Karnataka Chief Minister likely
Bangalore: B S Yeddyurappa is in Delhi  to meet with his party's top leaders. He is likely, say sources in the BJP, to return to Karnataka as chief minister. In July last year, he was forced to quit office after a report on illegal mining indicted him for corruption. Last week, a court dismissed those charges.

Mr Yeddyurappa has since the weekend proved rather unsubtly to his party that he remains its strongest leader in Karnataka, where the BJP has been trying to prevent its first government in the South from crashing.  After his demands to be made chief minister were ignored by the BJP.

Mr Yeddyurappa packed close to 70 of his party's 120 MLAs into a five-star resort on the outskirts of Bangalore.  The size of Mr Yeddyurappa's camp proved he can split the party.  Yesterday, his supporters refused to report to work at the Karnataka Assembly.

Back-stage negotiations helped end that embarrassment. Mr Yeddyurappa's loyalists arrived, as promised by him last night, at the Assembly this morning. In another sign of cooperation, he has asked his candidate for the Rajya Sabha, BJ Puttaswamy, to withdraw from the election. As an act of defiance, Mr Yeddyurappa had said that Mr Puttaswamy would contest the Rajya Sabha seat against official BJP candidates.

In a critical by-election today, the BJP lost the Udipi-Chikmagalur seat today- the former constituency of the new chief minister.  The defeat is a victory in disguise for Mr Yeddyurappa who chose not to campaign there allegedly because his party had reservations about the corruption cases against him and whether that would affect voters

On Monday, BJP president Nitin Gadkari requested Mr Yeddyurappa to be patient and "not to do anything that will hurt the BJP."

The current chief minister was hand-picked by Mr Yeddyurappa when he stepped down.  Now, Mr Gowda is unwilling to make room for the return of his mentor.

The dispute has caste overtones as well. Mr Yeddyurappa, a Lingayat, chose a Vokkaliga to replace him. Both are dominant communities in the state - and the BJP is in a bind now in case they have alienated the Lingayat vote bank. Would one time Yeddyurappa foe turned ally, Jagadish Shettar, another Lingayat, be a potential Chief Ministerial choice that would satisfy Mr Yeddyurappa if he is given the chair himself? And how would the Vokkaliga community react to a Chief Minister from their community being dumped on the demands of the volatile Mr Yeddyurappa? Elections to the state assembly are due in 2013.

Even if B.S. Yeddyurappa is reinstated as Karnataka chief minister by his high command, it would not mean the drama that is consuming the state BJP would be over. Far from it. This evening, several MLAs led by B. Jharkiholi met the state Governor H.R. Bharadwaj

Mr Jharikholi said, "People of Karnataka are watching everything. We have faith that Sadananda Gowda will not be changed. We support him as chief minister. But we must be ready for any high command decision."

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