The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka plunged into a crisis on Friday with eight Ministers from former chief minister B. S. Yeddyurappa’s camp, including chief ministerial aspirant Jagadish Shettar, tendering resignations from their ministerial posts.
These ministers submitted their resignation letters to Chief Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda in a bid to pressurise the party high command to effect a leadership change in the State.
This action of the Yeddyurappa camp, which has been demanding that Mr. Shettar be appointed chief minister, follows BJP national general secretary in-charge of Karnataka affairs Dharmendra Pradhan’s statement earlier in the day that there was no question of an imminent change in leadership in Karnataka .
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The ministers who resigned were Jagadish Shettar, C. M. Udasi, Basavaraj Bommai, Murugesh Nirani, V. Somanna, Umesh Katti, M. P. Renukacharya and Revu Nayak Belamagi.
The Yeddyurappa camp, which is upset over the postponement of the Central leaders’ visit to the state to elicit the views on leadership change following strong resistance from Mr. Gowda’s supporters, demanded that the high command should intervene immediately and take the issue seriously.
“We never had a working arrangement with the chief minister for the last several months. Besides, there was no coordination between the chief minister and several MLAs. The chief minister is reluctant to hold a legislature party meeting to discuss these issues. Hence we had to resign,” Minister Basavaraj Bommai told reporters after submitting the resignation letters.
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Meanwhile, the party’s central leaders, who had a telephonic conversation with State leaders, including prominent members of the Yeddyurappa camp, have asked the Chief Minister not to accept the resignations.