With his revolt fizzling out, former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa on Monday denied reports that he was contemplating quitting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“I will never quit the BJP. I will not go to Delhi either to seek any post. Instead, I will go to the people by starting a state-wide tour to bring the BJP back to power with a majority in the next elections,” he said at the convention of backward classes, organised by his supporters on his birthday on Monday.
Yeddyurappa claimed if he was nursing the ambition of becoming the chief minister again, it was only because the party high command had promised him that he would be reinstated a couple of months after he resigned. He said he would not have wished to get back the post had it not been for the party bosses’ promise.
Yeddyurappa said he was not hungry for the post of chief minister, as it was made out to be. If that was indeed the case, he said, he would have agreed to all the demands of the JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda in 2007, when the JD(S)-BJP alliance was in power in the state. Yeddyurappa said that instead of relenting, he quit the post within seven days and faced fresh elections.
Further, claiming that he was loyal to the BJP, Yeddyurappa said that instead of attending the BJP’s core committee meeting in New Delhi on March 3 to resolve the leadership issue, he would go to the people’s doorsteps in the state to strengthen the party.
CM says ‘no comments’
Later in the day, chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda refused to comment on Yeddyurappa’s claim. He declined to say anything on what transpired between the party high command and Yeddyurappa when the latter stepped down.
The chief minister said he would function in accordance with the party’s instructions. He said it was up to the party top brass to decide whether he should continue or quit.
At the BC’s convention, Yeddyurappa, in a veiled attack on Gowda, said he had built the party with a long-term vision and would not let anybody in the BJP to form an alliance with the JD(S).
“I will never allow anybody to hobnob with the father and the son,” he said, referring to Deve Gowda and the JD(S) state president HD Kumaraswamy.
Yeddyurappa said Deve Gowda should not harbour dreams of driving him away from politics. The former chief minister said Deve Gowda had again started showing up at Vidhana Soudha and vowed not to let him get back to the Soudha easily. Saying that he had learnt lessons after the JD(S) backstabbed him, he urged the party bosses to choose people who would not backstab the party.
At the convention, power minister Shobha Karandlaje said there were a few Mir Sadiqs (confidant of Tipu Sultan who sided with the British and cheated him) in the BJP, but Yeddyurappa had the strength to give a befitting reply to them.
She said it was important that the BJP cadres show respect and gratitude to the person who was instrumental in the party’s and their success. She claimed that when Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the prime minister, he had offered a Union cabinet seat to Yeddyurappa, who turned it down.
Besides Karandlaje, ministers R Ashoka, MP Renukacharya, V Somanna, Raju Gowda, CM Udasi, Basavaraj Bommai, MP DB Chandre Gowda, and scores of MLAs were present at the convention.
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