Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa is as good as gone but his continued defiance in the face of a decision by the Bharatiya Janata Party core committee could delay his exit by a few days.
On Sunday morning, the core committee took a decision that Mr. Yeddyurappa must resign and then conveyed it to the Chief Minister, who has been facing allegations of nepotism and cronyism in favouring close family members with allotments of plots of land at prices much lower than market rates. “His exit is now a matter of time. We are certainly moving in the direction of Mr. Yeddyurappa's exit,” a leader said after the meeting here.
However, reports reaching the capital suggested he was in a defiant mood and he continued to say he would not resign and there could be no replacement for him. The problem for the party now is to get him to resign and then decide on his successor. The three names being mentioned in BJP circles here are Suresh Kumar, Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs; V.S. Acharya, Minister for Higher Education; and R. Ashok, Home Minister. However, a final view will be taken only when the party secures Mr. Yeddyurappa's resignation.
The most that the party bigwigs are now willing to accommodate Mr. Yeddyurappa is to allow him some say on who the next Chief Minister should be, or rather who should not be. Apparently Mr. Yeddyurappa has ruled out Jagdish Shettar, also a Lingayat, fearing that he could emerge as a tall leader of the caste.
A senior core committee member told The Hindu that over the last few days any resistance to the idea of a change in Karnataka evaporated in the face of more and more scandals surfacing.
The leadership is acutely aware that while the party is carrying on a high decibel campaign against corruption at the Centre and targeting the Prime Minister himself, it has not been able to get its Chief Minister to resign in spite of documentary proof and even admission by him that he did allot land to his son, daughter and other relatives. “The core committee took the decision he must go and this has been conveyed to him,” the senior leader said.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari was later reported as having said he was now authorised by the leadership to take a decision on the fate of the Chief Minister. Mr. Yeddyurappa was to have met Mr. Gadkari on Sunday evening, and was to have been told firmly that he must step down. But the Chief Minister changed his plan and did not arrive here.
(According to a PTI report from Bangalore, Mr. Yeddyurappa cancelled his Delhi trip at the last minute. Sources in the Chief Minister's Secretariat said: “He is likely to visit tomorrow [Monday]. Even that is not for sure.”)
The party is conscious that any change of leadership in Karnataka could put the government itself into dire trouble as it enjoys a bare majority after 16 BJP MLAs were disqualified ahead of the trust vote necessitated by the crisis last month. But as the political stakes in Delhi are high — some party leaders have started talking about a mid-term poll following the unravelling of the 2G spectrum scam — the BJP may have to lose its Karnataka government. “We cannot take the high moral ground here in Parliament any more and allow our Chief Minister to do what he pleases in Karnataka,” said another senior leader.
The leadership is keen on sorting out the Karnataka affair by Monday, when Parliament meets. Already there are signs of Opposition unity crumbling as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has said Mr. Yeddyurappa must resign as he has set a “new record in cronyism.”
Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said the BJP should stop shouting about corruption and take note of what is happening under its nose in Karnataka.
