BJP undecided on CM's fate

The BJP core group meeting in Delhi on the fate of Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, following the uproar over alleged allotments of land to his family members at throwaway prices, ended inconclusively on Thursday night. HT reports.

The BJP core group meeting in Delhi on the fate of Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa, following the uproar over alleged allotments of land to his family members at throwaway prices, ended inconclusively on Thursday night.

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The group, comprising top Bharatiya Janata Party leaders such as L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and H N Ananth Kumar, instead decided to meet again in the next two days for further discussion.

"The core group discussed the news reports that have appeared on the Karnataka government," said Jaitley.

"The chief minister and other leaders may be called to Delhi for talks with the party's national leadership."

Earlier in the evening, the Karnataka cabinet endorsed Yeddyurappa's decision to form a commission, headed by a retired judge, to probe all the alleged land scams in the state during the last 10 years.

The trouble began about 10 days ago when Janata Dal (Secular) state president HD Kumaraswamy released some documents, alleging the CM had broken rules to allot government land to his sons and daughter and caused a loss of Rs 5,000-6,000 crore to the exchequer.

But Yeddyurappa said, "I have followed what my predecessors did".

Although the number of MLAs hostile to Yeddyurappa had grown from 40 to more than 61 by Thursday evening, the first BJP chief minister in south India asserted: "I will remain chief minister for the remaining two-and-a-half years."

The core group is divided over the fate of the CM. A section of the party brass - particularly Ananth Kumar and Sushma Swaraj, who have had problems with Yedyyurappa earlier too - are believed to have said the embarrassment threatened to dampen the BJP's corruption charges against the UPA.

The other view is that Yedyyurappa being a Lingayat, a numerically strong community that has recently been backing the BJP, is crucial to the party's electoral fortunes.