[1]Jolted by the Karnataka high court verdict giving former CM B.S. Yeddyurappa a clean chit in the illegal mining scam, the BJP top brass has begun efforts to placate him but is in no mood to give in to the demand that he should be made CM.
Party president Nitin Gadkari and BJP patriarch L.K. Advani have instead asked Yeddyurappa supporters to convince him to cooperate with CM Sadananda Gowda and work towards strengthening the party organisation for the 2013 Assembly polls.
The message that BSY could give up his dream of becoming CM again, was conveyed to Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda, BJP state president K.S. Eshwarappa and BSY loyalists who arrived in Goa on Friday to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the Manohar Parrikar ministry. They were told firmly by Mr Gadkari that there would be no change of guard in Karnataka.
This has come as a blow to BSY loyalists like ministers Umesh Katti, Basavaraj Bommai, Murugesh Nirani, Rajya Sabha MP Prabhakar Kore who were in Goa to lobby for the former CM.
Mr Gadkari said the BJP Parliamentary Board is unwilling to replace Sadananda Gowda. The leaders cited the example of Uttarakhand where the BJP had to trail behind the Congress in the Assembly polls because of scams.
With a new CM in place in Karnataka a year before the polls, the party does not want to change the status quo, the leaders said.
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[1] http://archive.asianage.com/yeddy10jpgcropdisplayjpg-741