Yeddyurappa will continue as Karnataka CM, says BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday said Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa will complete his five-year term despite some party legislators and leaders seeking his removal.“Yeddyurappa is our chief minister. He will continue and complete his term,” BJP general secretary Dharmendra Pradhan, who is in charge of party affairs in Karnataka, told reporters here.A group of party legislators, led by state unit president K S Eshwarappa, met with BJP leaders in New Delhi on Thursday and Friday in an effort to persuade them to remove Yeddyurappa after a string of allegations of corruption and illegal land deals against him.The group briefed BJP president Nitin Gadkari and other central leaders on several complaints from some ministers and party lawmakers against Yeddyurappa.Pradhan, who met Yeddyurappa, Eshwarappa and other party leaders on Friday and yesterday, said “all issues have been sorted out.”However, “certain matters are internal and will be sorted out,” he added.Pradhan said his visit was mainly to discuss the party’s preparations for the April 9 by-elections from three assembly constituencies.“We will fight the elections unitedly,” he said.Asked whether the BJP would ask Yeddyurappa to quit if the police register a complaint against him over alleged illegal land dealing, Pradhan said: “I am not good at law. There are various views on it.”One view is that it cannot be a ‘formal’ FIR (first information report) but a ‘technical’ one as the court has only asked the police to “inquire and submit the findings to it.”A Bangalore court on Thursday asked police attached to the office of the Lokayukta (ombudsman) to probe the charge and submit a report by May 4.The court order followed a private complaint by two advocates who have been granted permission by Governor H R Bhardwaj to launch criminal proceedings against Yeddyurappa over alleged corruption and illegal land deals.Though the opposition has demanded Yeddyurappa’s resignation in view of the court order, the chief minister has rejected it, saying no case has been made out yet and the probe is still on.Eshwarappa too maintained the same stand but said if allegations were proved, the party would take action “whatever the position a person is holding.”“As of now it is only allegations. Our party will take action if they are proved,” he told reporters in Hubli, about 400km from here.He also said during his Thursday-Friday visit to New Delhi he had conveyed to the party’s central leaders “about the problems some ministers and legislators have regarding development works in their areas.”