The Bharatiya Janata Party central leadership is likely to make a formal announcement on the re-entry of the former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa into the party in the first week of January.
According to highly placed sources, an indication in this regard has been given to the party State unit by national president Rajnath Singh, who visited Bangalore on Friday to attend the State executive committee meeting. There is a possibility of such a formal announcement being made in Bangalore itself as the central unit wants to treat this as a local issue.
A BJP leader close to Mr. Yeddyurappa said the former Chief Minister may prefer to rejoin the party some time after January 14.
“Till recently, the discussions regarding his re-entry were being held mostly through media statements. But now the actual process of building consensus among those who have reservations with respect to his re-entry — following cases of corruption against him — have begun. Mr. Rajnath Singh, who is trying to build such a consensus among central leaders, has been holding talks,” sources said.
Interestingly, without mentioning Mr. Yeddyurappa’s name, BJP national general secretary Ananth Kumar expressed support to for his re-entry by remarking at the State executive committee meeting that “we will witness good moments in the new year when our brothers who left us will rejoin us”.
He said: “We faced problems as some of our brothers left us before the Assembly polls. An effort is going on to re-include them in the party fold to strengthen the party organisation to implement our prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi’s call for freeing the country from the grip of the Congress.”
This was welcomed by some of the party delegates, who shouted pro-Yeddyurappa slogans during the executive committee meeting, right in front of the party national president.
Some of the BJP leaders who are close to Mr. Yeddyurappa, called on him at his residence in Bangalore soon after the meeting. BJP State president Pralhad Joshi said the party central election committee will announce the first list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections on January 20.
The State unit had been told to recommend the names of candidates for the first list by January 16.
