Central leaders to decide on Yeddyurappa's return: Karnataka BJP

The Bharatiya Janata Party's Karnataka unit Thursday said its central leaders will decide whether to bring former leader B.S. Yeddyurappa back into the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections due early next year.

"We have conveyed our views (on taking back Yeddyurappa) and now the decision rests with our central leaders," former chief minister and leader of the opposition in the legislative council D.V. Sadananda Gowda told reporters after the state unit's coordination committee meeting here.

Besides the issue of Yeddyurappa's return, the committee discussed the party's preparation for the Lok Sabha polls.

Meanwhile Yeddyurappa told a meeting of his Karnataka Janata Party that he has not talked anywhere about merger of his outfit with the BJP.

He said the KJP would retain its separate identity but would be part of BJP-led NDA and work for making Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi the prime minister.

However a section of Karnataka BJP leaders like former minister C.T. Ravi maintain that it is only a matter of time before the KJP would merge with BJP.

Gowda, who succeeded Yeddyurappa in August 2011 as chief minister, is among the Karnataka BJP leaders who have been lobbying with the party central leadership for early return of the former leader into the party.