No red carpet awaits Yeddyurappa on return to BJP

Until his revolt against the leadership in December 2012, former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa fought for his reinstatement on his terms. He even created an outfit, because of which the BJP was decimated in the assembly polls last year.

Until his revolt against the leadership in December 2012, former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa fought for his reinstatement on his terms. He even created an outfit, because of which the BJP was decimated in the assembly polls last year.

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But his return to the BJP and the merger of his Karnataka Janatha Paksha (KJP) with the saffron party, slated for later this month and on which he has been quite eager, will not mean any immediate top post for him.

He won’t be made the state party chief or even its campaign head.

Also, neither Yeddyurappa nor his son Raghvendra, who is an MP from Shimoga, will seek the BJP ticket to contest the Lok Sabha polls.

Nor will the former CM, who had to resign in 2011 after he was indicted by the state lokayukta in a mining scam, seek a say in the distribution of tickets. He will "just" campaign for the BJP and support the candidature of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister.

Surprisingly, the former CM Yeddyurappa, agreed to the terms after several parleys through interlocutors, seeing the merit in arguments that his rehabilitation could wait and the bigger issue was that the BJP’s votes in Karnataka should not be divided.