BS Yeddyurappa back with a ladle as poll pot simmers

BS Yeddyurappa rejoined his mother party BJP officially on Thursday along with follower leaders and workers, with the former chief minister and his bete noire and party national general secretary HN Ananth Kumar declaring that they would work like “brothers”.

Both asked people to forgive them for their “mistakes” and promised to commit no more in future.
“I committed a mistake by leaving BJP, where I worked for 40 years. Please forgive me for that. I will forget everything which happened in the past and work for BJP as a humble party worker. My aim is to help Modi to become PM by giving sufficient number of MPs from the state in the LS elections and fight against the Siddaramaiah led state government,” Yeddyurappa told the gathering at the BJP office.

Ananth Kumar said: “I will also ask people to forgive all bad happenings in the past and I and Yeddyurappa are brothers who reunited now. We brothers will challenge Siddaramaiah that we will remove this worst government. We will strengthen our party again to achieve power in center and state.”

Both made a great show of the new-found bonhomie between them.particularly since Yeddyurappa had repeatedly declared that Kumar was the reason he had left the BJP, claiming that the party general secretary misled Advani about him, forcing his ouster from the post of the chief minister in 2011.

However, after assembly elections wherein his party got just six seats, afraid of losing his base, Yeddyurappa wanted to rejoin BJP, but held back as the sword of arrest by CBI in in illegal mining case hung over his head. Also, the BJP central leadership was not very welcoming.

However, the projection of Narendra Modi as BJP”s prime ministerial candidate smoothened the return as Yeddyurappa has a good rapport with Modi. BJP state leaders, chastened by the assembly poll loss, were also eager to welcome the former chie fminister, as without him they were no position to face the Lok Sabha elections.

Yeddyurappa announced merger of his one-year-old Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP) into BJP on January 2, and he and his associates including Shobha Karandlaje, RV Renukacharya, CM Udasi and others joined BJP technically by filling the primary membership forms.

In the morning, Yeddyurappa held a office bearers meeting at the KJP office in Malleswaram and decided to dissolve the KJP.  He was received by state unit president Prahlad Joshi, Ananth Kumar, former chief ministers Jagadish Shettar and Sadananda Gowda and former deputy CM KS Eshwarappa at the BJP office.  From the KJP flock of MLAs, four are backing Yeddyurappa. BR Patil and Guru Patil have shown no interest in joining BJP.