Bangalore, Dec 26 (IANS) Former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa said Wednesday his new party will decide Jan 4 on whether his supporters in the ruling BJP should bring down the Jagadish Shettar government.
“The Shettar government has stopped all pro-poor programmes launched by me and hence should quit immediately or should be dismissed,” he said addressing a rally of his Karnataka Janata Part (KJP) here.
“Leaders of the KJP will meet Jan 4 to decide whether Shettar government should stay or not,” said Yeddyurappa, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) first chief minister in Karnataka who quit the party and assembly Nov 30 to lead the KJP.
The KJP, of which he became president Dec 9, held rallies in Bangalore and several places in the state to protest the “BJP government’s failure to release money for pro-poor welfare measures” launched by Yeddyurappa when he was chief minister between 2008-2011.
Yeddyurappa was forced to quit July last year over mining bribery charges.
The former chief minister claims that around 50 of BJP’s 118 members, including several ministers, in the 225-member assembly support him and would join the KJP “at appropriate time”.
He has also been claiming that the Shettar government has been reduced to minority as 14 BJP assembly members had shared the dais with him Dec 9 for the formal launch of the KJP.
However, none of them has quit the party nor has the BJP taken any action against him, though it has been threatening to do so.
After the rally at Freedom Park in Bangalore city centre, Yeddyurappa led his supporters in a march to Vidhana Soudha, the state secretariat about two km away, to demand Shettar’s resignation if his government was unable to properly implement the programmes.
Shettar, however, was away in Gujarat to attend the swearing in ceremony of party colleague Narendra Modi as chief minister.
