Yeddyurappa quits BJP, not to rock Shettar govt.
Mr. Yeddyurappa asked MLAs and Ministers loyal to him not to resign as he wants the government to complete its full term.
Breaking his four-decade-old association with the BJP, estranged Karnataka strongman B.S. Yedddyurappa on Friday resigned from its primary membership, but said he would not rock the Jagadish Shettar government.
Bidding an emotional adieu to the party he had helped bring to power as the first BJP government in the South, Mr. Yeddyruppa said he had sent in his resignation to party chief Nitin Gadkari.
After announcing his exit to supporters at a meeting at Freedom Park in Bangalore, Mr. Yeddyurappa went in a procession to Vidhana Soudha, the State Secretariat and submitted his resignation from the Assembly membership to Speaker K.G. Bopaiah.
“It is an unforgettable and painful day for me,” said the 70-year-old leader, adding he was leaving the party with which he was associated for the past 40 years out of inevitability and in the interests of the people.
Mr. Yeddyurappa, who rebuffed central leaders’ last ditch attempts to retain him in the BJP, said, “some people” in the party betrayed him and stabbed him in the back and tried to weaken him.
The exit of Mr. Yeddyurappa is unlikely to make an immediate impact on the stability of the Shettar government as he himself said he does not want to rock the boat and wants it to complete its full term.
Mr. Yeddyurappa has announced he would formally launch the “Karnataka Janata Party” on December 9, 2012 at Haveri.
Mr. Yeddyurappa asked MLAs and Ministers loyal to him not to resign as he wants the government to complete its full term. “I have asked them not to resign for the time being.”
Mr. Shettar was handpicked by Mr. Yeddyurappa to succeed D.V. Sadananda Gowda, who was also his choice but was forced to quit by his camp after he fell out with them.
Shortly before resigning from the BJP, Mr. Yeddyurappa was virtually in tears and trained his guns at party leaders for hatching a "conspiracy" against him.
“The party has given everything to me. And I have sacrificed my life to build my previous party (BJP)”, he said, fighting back tears.
Mr. Yeddyurappa said he was quitting “because of our own (BJP) people. They don’t want me to continue in the party; that’s why I am resigning from the primary membership as also MLAship“.
He said he resigned as Chief Minister (in July 2011) on the direction of the party high-command as a "disciplined soldier" of the party. “They mistook my goodness as weakness“.
Mr. Yeddyurappa, who was forced to quit as Chief Minister by the party central leadership after the Lokayukta report on illegal mining indicted him, has been on the offensive since then against the top brass.
He turned more belligerent after the central leadership rebuffed his repeated attempts to regain Chief Ministership and refused to at least make him state unit party chief.
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