Yeddyurappa faxed a letter to BJP President Nitin Gadkari, resigning from primary membership of the party, with which he was associated right from Jan Sangh days, and later met Assembly Speaker K G Bopaiah and submitted his resignation from the House seat.
"I am forced to take this hard decision to leave the party which I built in the state", he said in a scathing attack on BJP leadership. "It was a couple of leaders who victimised and pushed me to this situation of no return".
While he mentioned no names, Yeddyurappa had in the past few weeks repeatedly targetted party leader H N Ananth Kumar and state BJP President K S Eshwarappa accusing them of conspiring against him.
It is also no secret that Yeddyurappa was not seeing eye to eye with the party stalwart L K Advani and, according to one account, wasn't even on talking terms with him.
The decision of Yeddyurappa, who had served as Chief Minister for 38 months till he resigned last year after his indictment by a Lokayukta report on illegal mining, is seen as a huge setback to BJP which is devoid of a leader of mass appeal and stature like him in Karnataka.
"Today, with great pain and a heavy heart, I am beginning a new phase in my political life", said Yeddyurappa, who recounted how he had striven hard to build BJP and bring it to power for the first time in Karnataka and South India.
For now, the four-and-half-month old Shettar government seems to face no threat to its survival.
Yeddyurappa asked ministers and MLAs supporting him not to resign, saying his Karnataka Janatha Party (KJP) would extend cooperation to the government to complete its full term. "We should not face the charge that we toppled the government".
Yeddyurappa also appealed to MLAs, MLCs and MPs loyal to him not to attend the December nine rally at Haveri where he is slated to formally take over the reins of KJP, a party registered last year but yet to make electoral debut. (MORE)
