The BJP top brass, who met Karnataka MPs have counselled against the BSY group’s boycott of the Budget Session as it could precipitate the fall of the first saffron government in the House. The legislators will, however, attend the House on Tuesday to pay their last respects to the recently deceased minister V.S. Acharya.
BJP party president Nitin Gadkari on Monday counselled patience until he returned to the national capital. Mr Gadkari, who was in Mumbai, said no decision would be made under pressure and asked Mr Yeddyurappa to have patience. “The party will take an appropriate decision (on Yeddyurappa’s demand) soon. But BJP will not take any decision under pressure,” Mr Gadkari said.
The party chief has reportedly headed for consultations with RSS chiefs in Nagpur, indicating that they had suggested a compromise formula whereby the incumbent chief minister presents the Budget on March 21 and Mr Yeddyurappa is sworn in as chief minister the day after.
This has however been rejected by BSY, who is pushing hard for a BJP core committee meeting in the capital to be convened which will announce his return, and for the chief minister to call for a legislature party meeting where he will be elected the new leader on Tuesday, and take over as chief minister.
“I told the MPs that only that party forum which had asked Yeddyurappa to step down can now decide on whether he should be reinstated. The core group had made this decision and it will have to meet again if this decision has to be reconsidered,” said Ms Swaraj.
In a strong rebuff to Mr Yeddyurappa’s camp, the state BJP expelled B.J. Puttaswamy, political secretary to the chief minister after he filed his nomination as a party candidate for the Rajya Sabha polls. Mr Puttaswamy had earlier served as political secretary to Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa when he was CM. The BSY camp had put him up as a candidate to prove that the state BJP could not move an inch without their support.