By IANS,
New Delhi : Dissident Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers of Karnataka Tuesday asserted that the central leadership had not taken any decision on the chief minister’s fate, a day after party president Rajnath Singh said B.S. Yeddyurappa would remain in the top post.
“He (Singh) has not told us anything like that. It is all media creation,” said Revenue Minister G. Karunakara Reddy, who along with his younger brother and Tourism Minister G. Janardhana Reddy, is leading the campaign for Yeddyurappa’s ouster.
“If that was the case why would I meet Sushma Swaraj today (Tuesday)?,” Janardhana Reddy said here after meeting Swaraj, a senior BJP leader considered close to the brothers.
The Reddy brothers are rich iron ore mine owners from Bellary, about 400 km from Bangalore.
“Bilkul, bilkul (definitely, definitely),” Singh had said here late Monday when asked if Yeddyurappa would continue as chief minister.
Singh was talking to reporters after a meeting with senior party leaders L.K. Advani, Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and others to find a solution to the crisis.
The Reddy brothers said they were confident that the party leadership would take the right decision as their aim is to see BJP rule Karnataka for the next 50 years, not just five years.
They insisted there was no change in their demand for removal of Yeddyurappa.
“There is no compromise,” said Karunakara Reddy.
Continuing his tirade against Yeddyurappa, Janardhana Reddy said that “some people are showing how mean minded they are by opposing our plan to build 54,000 houses for the flood hit (in north Karnataka)”.
The Reddy brothers had launched the programme to construct the houses with funds they have contributed and raised from other mine owners, ignoring Yeddyurappa’s plea to make it a government-run effort one and not the Reddys’ private effort.
Janardhana Reddy said he was “one hundred percent hopeful that the party will give a very good leadership in the interest of the state”.
“There is no change in my stand,” he added.