The Bharatiya Janata Party core committee — the highest decision-making body of the State unit — that met here on Saturday in the presence of its national general secretary Thawarchand Gehlot decided to consider the suggestion of including the former Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa into its fold only if he makes a formal proposal to the party national leadership seeking re-entry.
With this, the party has put the onus of making the first formal move on Mr. Yeddyurappa as against the efforts being made by his supporters to convince the party to voluntarily invite him back to it.
This would mean that the “bring back Yeddyurappa” efforts would halt till he himself offers to rejoin the party. Also, this is being seen as a message that his rejoining would be on the party’s terms and conditions.
“Right now, we do not have any proposal from Mr. Yeddyurappa seeking his re-entry into the party. Let him first make a proposal before our national leadership. Then, the State core committee will discuss the issue.
Final decision
However, the final decision will have to taken by the Central Parliamentary Board only,” Mr. Gehlot told reporters after the core committee meeting.
Justifying the stand that Mr. Yeddyurappa should make the first move, Mr. Gehlot said: “Mr. Yeddyurappa quit the party on his own. We did not remove him. That being the case, the proposal regarding his re-entry into the party should first come from him,” he said.
Mr. Gehlot, who was recently appointed in charge of the party State affairs, said the core committee had met basically to discuss the issues related to the ongoing organisational elections and preparations for the Lok Sabha polls.
However, the Yeddyurappa issue too came up for discussion, he said, but refused to divulge any details.
At the same time, he admitted that Mr. Yeddyurappa was a prominent political leader in Karnataka. “But our party’s norms and constitution make it mandatory that any person interested in joining the party has to first make a proposal to the party,” he said.
Request
He noted that party State president Pralhad Joshi had apprised me about the developments with respect to a group of party leaders, including the former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda, meeting him with a request to induct Mr. Yeddyurappa into the party to improve its performance in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
When his attention was drawn to the confusion in the party cadre due to public statements being issued by its leaders regarding Mr. Yeddyurappa’s re-entry, he said the party had taken note of it and was holding discussions on the steps to be taken to end this.
Meanwhile Mr. Sadananda Gowda, who is also a member of the core committee, clarified to presspersons that he was not part of any group in the party.
“All that I have been asking the party to do is to end the confusion on the Yeddyurappa issue by taking a final call on whether to bring him back or not. Otherwise, this confusion will continue to affect the party even in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
