Cabinet reshuffle: minister threatens suicide

A Karnataka minister today threatened to commit suicide if he was dropped from the Yeddyurappa ministry, even as the chief minister was facing problems in carrying out a cabinet reshuffle with an MLA warning of resignation by 20 legislators.

“I don’t know what turn it will take if I am dropped... It may even take the form of suicide. Let the BJP hoist its flag on my dead body,” Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Gulihatti D Shekar said here. Shekar was one of the independents who supported the BJP government when it fell short of majority in May 2008.

Yeddyurappa is now in Delhi seeking the nod of the BJP central leadership for the Cabinet expansion and reshuffle proposed this month. According to BJP sources, the chief minister is likely to drop three to four ministers and induct three new faces.

BJP MLA Belur Gopalakrishna said a group of 20 MLAs, under the leadership of Excise Minister M P Renukacharya, today decided to submit their resignation en masse to the Governor H R Bhardwaj tomorrow. He said the MLAs would meet tomorrow to decide the future course of action after Renukacharya returns from abroad. He denied that it was a pressure tactic.

Gopalakrishna, who was in the forefront of rebellion against the Chief Minister last year, said Library Minister Shivanagouda Naik might be axed. “Red carpet has been laid out to outsiders and first-timers while injustice has been meted out to loyalists,” he rued.

He slammed state BJP chief K S Eshwarappa for his “disdainful” remark recently that he (Gopalakrishna), who has been demanding a ministerial berth to the Idiga community, is free to remain in the party or go out. “It’s an insult to Idiga community and my constituency,” he said, and added that Eshwarappa told senior Idiga community members that their voters had not backed BJP in the polls. “This has hurt me and the community.”

Meanwhile, a Yeddyruppa loyalist and minister, Anand Vasanth Asnotikar, said it was appropriate and imperative to restructure the cabinet by dropping non-performers, scam-tainted persons and those who hurt the image of the party.

In a related development, MLA S K Bellubbi resigned from the chairmanship of a state-owned corporation saying he has been sounded to get ready to become a minister again. He was forced to quit by Yeddyurappa earlier to accommodate Umesh Katti, who had crossed over to BJP from JD(S).