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Facing accusation of capitulation, Yeddyurappa talks tough
Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa on Tuesday insisted that he has not surrendered to money power to save his chair.
Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa on Tuesday insisted that he has not surrendered to money power to save his chair.
"Yeddyurappa is not a person who bows to money and muscle power," he said in Mysore, about 130 km from Bangalore, after praying at the Chamundeshwari temple atop Chamundi hills.
He was responding to reporters' questions as to whether his authority as chief minister had been weakened by the compromise formula worked out by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) central leaders to make dissidents give up their demand for his removal.
Yeddyurappa has, however, already acted on several demands of the dissidents led by Tourism Minister G Janardhana Reddy and his elder brother and Revenue Minister G Karunakara Reddy. The Reddy brothers are billionaire iron ore mine owners from Bellary, about 400 km from Bangalore.
On Monday he dropped the lone woman minister Shobha Karandlaje and Tuesday, he rolled back transfer of senior officials from Bellary and Gadag districts. The Reddy loyalist and Health Minister B Sriramulu supervises Gadag affairs.
On the setting up of a coordination committee to ensure smooth running of his troubled government, Yeddyurappa said it was only a consultative body and not an overriding authority.
The Reddy brothers, however, have been asserting that the coordination committee decision would be final in all matters.
"We will go by the coordination committee decisions," they have been telling the media since Sunday when senior leader Sushma Swaraj announced an end to the dissidence.
Swaraj is expected play a decisive role in Karnataka affairs even if she does not head the committee. On Sunday there was strong indication from the dissidents that she will lead the committee.
"We will go by the decisions of our 'thayi' (mother)," Janardhana Reddy told reporters in Bangalore on Tuesday.
The Reddy brothers, who have made iron ore rich district Bellary their home, treat Swaraj as their mother. They came close to her during the 1999 Lok Sabha elections when she contested from Bellary against Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Janardhana Reddy said the committee would be set up in about three days time.
