The BJP leadership has snubbed Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) president B.S. Yeddyurappa and pooh-poohed his claim that senior BJP leaders were in touch with him and asking him to rejoin the parent party.
“We have not received any request or letter from Mr. Yeddyurappa seeking his readmission into the BJP. There is no proposal before the party to consider his re-entry”, said Thawar Chand Gehlot, BJP general secretary in charge for Karnataka.
Talking to The Hindu over phone on Saturday, Mr. Gehlot said there was nothing before the party leadership in Delhi to discuss about Mr. Yeddyurappa.
The BJP had no such subject in its agenda, he made it clear.
Sources in the BJP leadership here pointed out that it was Mr. Yeddyurappa, who quit the BJP and his Assembly membership in a huff and joined the KJP. “We did not send him out. If he wants to come back let him send a formal request. That will be considered at the appropriate time by the appropriate authority,” they said.
Mr. Gehlot, a Lok Sabha member from Shahjapur in Madhya Pradesh, was made in charge of Karnataka party affairs by the BJP high command recently replacing Dharmendra Pradhan.
The BJP removed Mr. Yeddyurappa, its former strongman in Karnataka, from the chief ministership two years ago following a series of corruption charges against him.
After trying to get back the Chief Minister’s saddle, a disappointed Mr. Yeddyurappa quit the party and floated his own KJP in December, 2012. However he spoiled the chances of the BJP in the recent Assembly poll and he also could not gain much at the hustings.
Mr. Yeddyurappa, talking to journalists in Bangalore recently, said: “I have already received many such types of communication from BJP president Rajnath Singh and other senior leaders (on his return). I haven’t yet decided. I will discuss it with my colleagues and arrive at a decision,” he said.
He had no personal opinion on the issue as he represented KJP. “I have not received any formal or official communication from the BJP on my return,” he had said to a question.