Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa is likely to be asked by the BJP’s central leadership to quit in the wake of the state lokayukta’s final report indicting him for dubious deals with companies engaged in illegal mining.
Yeddyurappa, who reached Delhi late on Wednesday to meet BJP president Nitin Gadkari, found himself at the receiving end in lokayukta justice Santosh Hegde’s report on illegal mining in Karnataka.Sources in the BJP said the CM was on his way out and being persuaded to agree on who would replace him.
Hegde said in his report that a mining company donated R10 crore to a trust owned by Yeddyurappa’s family. Hegde, a former Supreme Court judge, has estimated that the state exchequer suffered a loss of R16,085 crore due to illegal mining between 2006 and 2010.
The indictment has put the BJP on the defensive at a time when it has been demanding the resignations of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P Chidambaram, after former telecom minister A Raja told a court the 2G spectrum allocations cleared during his tenure had the approval of the PM and the then finance minister.
{{/usCountry}}The indictment has put the BJP on the defensive at a time when it has been demanding the resignations of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and home minister P Chidambaram, after former telecom minister A Raja told a court the 2G spectrum allocations cleared during his tenure had the approval of the PM and the then finance minister.
{{/usCountry}}The report also indicted the CM’s two sons and son-in-law, tourism minister Janardhan Reddy, revenue minister G Karunakara Reddy and Karnataka Milk Federation chairman Somashekhar Reddy, health minister B Sriramulu, former CM HD Kumaraswamy of the JD-Secular and Congress MP Anil Lad.
“It is a report running into thousands of pages. We are studying it,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said after parliamentary party executive meeting. “Like the party president said, we will take action after we have studied it.” Earlier, Yeddyurappa said he would take action on the report and discuss it at a state cabinet meeting on Thursday.
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