After two days of hectic travel and discussion, Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa sent his resignation to Nitin Gadkari, national president of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), late this evening as directed by the party high command.
Yeddyurappa, the first chief minister of a BJP government in south India, stepped down after his attempts to convince the high command to let him stay did not yield any results. He has asked Gadkari to protect his future interests. The party’s parliamentary board, which met in New Delhi earlier in the day, directed Yeddyurappa to resign in the wake of his indictment by the state ombudsman in the mining scam.
Senior BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu, who arrived here this evening, told reporters the party had not decided on the next leader of the legislature party. “I have arrived here to consult the members of the legislature party and take their opinion,” he said.
Earlier this afternoon, K S Eshwarappa, president of the party’s state unit, told reporters: “As a loyal and disciplined member of the party, Yeddyurappa will obey the decision of the high command and resign. Though the chief minister explained his position on the mining issue to the party president late Wednesday, Yeddyurappa has no alternative than to step down in conformity with the leadership’s decision.”
Adding: “The party high command advised me to convene a meeting of the party’s legislators’ on Friday to elect a new leader in place of Yeddyurappa, in the presence of senior leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh.” The core committee of the BJP had met in Delhi last night and discussed the Karnataka crisis till the early hours today, at Gadkari’s residence. In line with the party’s policy, Gadkari had advised Yeddyurappa to step down immediately and make way for the election of a new leader.
The ruling party, which came to power on its own in the state for the first time in May 2008, has another 21 months to rule. The term of the current state legislative assembly is till May 2013.
Yeddyurappa had overcome a succession of political crises in the past three years. This time, however, the final report of the Lokayukta on illegal mining in Karnataka has recommended his prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Soon after a dejected Yeddyurappa returned here earlier in the day, he has been holding consultations with a dozen cabinet ministers and scores of lawmakers, party cadres and supporters at his official residence on the next course of action.
In a related development, revenue minister Karunakara Reddy, tourism minister Janardhana Reddy and health minister B Sriramulu -- all three have been also indicted in the report and are considered to be at the core of the scam -- also agreed to abide by the party’s leadership decision to remove Yeddyurappa.
The Reddy brothers and Sriramulu all hail from the rich mining region of Bellary in north Karnataka. Though the Reddy brothers claimed all along that they were not doing any mining, as they had neither mines or mining licences in the state, the Lokayukta report has given substantial evidence on the charge that they were both mining and exporting iron ore from the state.
