IANS/New Delhi

Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa will remain in the post, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh said yesterday, putting an end to the intense leadership tussle plaguing the party’s first government in the south.

Emerging from the BJP’s Core Committee’s meeting to decide on the leadership issue yesterday evening, Singh that Yeddyurappa would continue.

“Yes, he will,” Singh told reporters when asked whether Yeddyurappa will remain the chief minister.

The meeting was attended by veteran leader L K Advani, party president Singh and general secretary Arun Jaitley.

Earlier in the day, Tourism Minister G Janardhana Reddy, who along with his elder brother and Revenue Minister G Karunakara Reddy is gunning to remove Yeddyurappa, met Jaitley and party MP Ananth Kumar in Delhi.

“Every legislator and MP put forward their viewpoints,” Jaitley told reporters.

“Based on that we gave our report to the national leadership,” Jaitley said after meeting Reddy.

The main demand of the Reddy brothers is to have a home minister in the state of their choice, withdrawal of abduction cases against them and revamping of the state administration.

The power tussle in the BJP’s Karnataka unit saw prolonged negotiations between leaders of the rival camps and national leaders here on Sunday.

Several legislators and MPs belonging to both camps - one supporting Yeddyurappa and the other favouring the Reddy brothers of Bellary - were in the capital.

Yeddyurappa supporters — former MP Dhananjay Kumar and state Home Minister V S Acharya — met Advani and party president Rajnath Singh on Sunday.

Acharya and Kumar also called on BJP general secretary Ramlal earlier and claimed his support in favour of Yeddyurappa.

The Reddy brothers were lobbying to appoint assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar as the chief minister. Shettar, 53, is close to the brothers.

As Yeddyurappa’s supporters and the Reddys and their loyalists were in the national capital meeting the central leaders, stories began floating in Bangalore that Ananth Kumar was the brain behind the Reddys’ revolt against his long-time political rival Yeddyurappa.

Yeddyurappa rushed to rubbish the speculation and defended Ananth Kumar saying he was playing a major role in resolving the crisis.

“Unnecessarily his name is being dragged and linked to the Reddys. He is taking the lead to resolve the crisis,” the chief minister told reporters in Bellary, the home district of the Reddy brothers, 400km from Bangalore.

Another party veteran and former federal minister V Dhananjaya Kumar, now the state government’s special representative in Delhi, also denied that Ananth Kumar was the source of the trouble.

Yeddyurappa also apologised to the people of the state because several legislators supporting the Reddys are reportedly having a ball at a luxury hotel in Hyderabad.

Most of these legislators are from north Karnataka where more than a million people have been left homeless by the September 30-October 2 rain and floods that caused widespread destruction.

“As chief minister I apologise to the people,” Yeddyurappa said in the wake of reports that most of the north Karnataka legislators were in Hyderabad as part of the Reddys’

Energy Minister K S Eshwarappa, a former state BJP president, said in Shimoga he regretted the crisis in the ministry at a time when a large number of people were affected by floods.

It is not only Yeddyurappa and other ministers who are apologising to the people.

The Reddy brothers also have been tendering apologies to the people for the crisis. However they blame Yeddyurappa for the crisis and say they would not allow this to hinder flood relief in Bellary and other districts.