BJP brass look for options to save govt

Even as the Opposition parties are gunning for the resignation of Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa after he was reportedly found involved in mining and land scams, the central leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) huddled to look for options to save the government in the southern state.

Even before Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s report comes out, the party leadership has decided to take on External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, a former chief minister. BJP leaders say if the report doesn’t indict Krishna then it would be biased. Allocation of illegal land had taken place when Krishna, was chief minister as well, the BJP alleges.

Senior BJP members said Yeddyurappa had spoken to senior leader Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, who is monitoring the Karnataka government after repeated allegations of corruption were made by Opposition parties.

The chief minister has also spoken to Dharmendra Pradhan, BJP general secretary and the party’s in-charge of Karnataka affairs. The two BJP leaders spoke to Yeddyurappa on Thursday morning.

“The selective leak of the Lokayukta report doesn’t make any sense. If it doesn’t talk about S M Krishna, then we can categorically say that it is biased,” said a senior leader of BJP.

Yeddyurappa is already facing two charges before the Karnataka High Court. The first charge is on allegedly selling land after it was denotified and sold by his sons to a mining company at an exorbitant price. The second charge is on receiving donations by a trust in which Yeddyurappa’s family members are members.

“We have not seen the report. Let the report come first. It is an 8,000-page report; we would first want to go through the report and then comment,” said BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.

Senior leaders of the BJP indicated that both the central and state leadership was backing Yeddyurappa completely for now and would want to buy some time to read the report before taking a final decision.

Karnataka is the first BJP government in south India. The party is being held together by

B S Yeddyurappa, who is seen as an extremely strong chief minister, with strong support of the Lingayat community of the state.