According to reports, the Yeddyurappa loyalists led by senior leader GS Basavaraj, will submit a memorandum to BJP President Nitin Gadkari seeking a legislature party meeting where Yeddyurappa would be elected as their leader and consequently be made the new chief minister.
In a bid to keep the group of BJP MLAs supporting Yeddyurappa intact, they are currently camping at a resort in the outskirts of Bangalore. This has been done to ensure that no BJP MLA is influenced by incumbent Chief Minister DV Sadananda Gowda or his close associates.
Meanwhile, 10 BJP MPs have also threatened to resign in support Yeddyurappa, if the party fails to put him back in the chief minister's chair.
Ruling BJP in Karnataka plunged into a political crisis after Yeddyurappa intensified his power struggle by claiming support of over half of party MLAs and demanded that the central leadership convene a legislature party meet within 48 hours.
The BJP has a strength of 120 legislators, including the Speaker, in the 224-member Assembly.
The BJP Karnataka strongman, who is keen on presenting the budget himself, has set the new deadline hoping to regain the lost chair, even as the state unit party president KS Eswarappa firmly ruled out change of guard.
The BJP high command has instead asked Yeddyurappa to clear himself of the various charges of corruption pending against him in courts before staking his claim for the chief minister’s post.
Yeddyurappa was forced to step down as chief minister in July 2011 after he was indicted in the Karnataka Lokayukta's report on illegal mining.
Amid the crisis, Chief Minister Gowda celebrated his 59th birthday on a low key and declared he would present the budget. Gowda, who called on Siddganga Mutt seer Shivakumara Swamy at Tumkur to seek his blessings on his birthday, however, ducked a query on the leadership change demand by Yeddyurappa faction, remarking "it will be decided by central leadership".
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