With the Yeddyurappa camp adamant in its demand for reinstating him as Karnataka Chief Minister, Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Monday said the party is in touch with him and that the issue will be resolved.
BJP leader Arun Jaitley said he did not see the crisis in the party-ruled State as a serious problem, adding he is also personally in touch with B.S. Yeddyurappa.
“The party is in touch with him. It is purely an internal party issue and we will resolve it. I don’t see it as any serious problem and we will resolve that issue,” he said when asked to comment on developments in Karnataka where MLAs loyal to the BJP strongman are lodged in a resort on the outskirts of Bangalore and appeared in no mood to soften their stand.
Mr. Jaitley, who is here to file his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha biennial poll from Gujarat, said Mr. Yeddyurappa had been asked to resign after the Lokayukta report on illegal mining and the criminal prosecution which arose out of the Lokayukta report.
“That prosecution has been quashed on the grounds that the Lokayukta had not granted him any opportunity of hearing.
There were some factual inaccuracies also. So he has been in dialogue with the party that the reason why he was removed no longer exists,” he told reporters.
BJP has a strength of 120 legislators, including the Speaker, in the 224-member Assembly.
It had forced Mr. Yeddyurappa to quit in July 2011 after he was indicted by the Lokyukta report on illegal mining that had triggered a political storm in the State.
Recently, the Karnataka High Court quashed the charges against him in the report and also the reference made by the Governor to the Lokayukta to file an FIR and investigate them.
