Yeddyurappa in Delhi to seek party’s advice

BANGALORE - Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa Sunday rushed to New Delhi to seek advice from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership on facing the prosecution case filed against him by two city-based lawyers for alleged corruption.

“The chief minister flew to Delhi this afternoon to apprise the party leadership on the political developments in the state following the governor’s (H.R. Bhardwaj) sanction for his prosecution and seek advice on the next course of action,” a senior official told IANS.

Yeddyurappa will meet opposition leader in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and party’s senior leader M. Venkaiah Naidu, among others, to discuss the political and legal strategies to challenge the governor’s action.

“The chief minister will decide in consultation with the party leadership whether to challenge the governor’s prosecution order in the Karnataka High Court on Monday for staying the proceedings in the special Lokyayukta (Ombudsman) court where two criminal cases were filed on Saturday by advocates K.N. Balaraj and Sirajin Basha,” the official from the chief minister’s office said on condition of anonymity.

The twin cases - on the charges of land grabbing and de-notification (freeing from government control) by the chief minister - are slated to come up for hearing Monday on their admissibility in the special court of Judge C.B. Hipparagi.

Besides Yeddyurappa, his two sons — B.Y. Raghavendra, a Lok Sabha member from Shimoga in central Karnataka, and B.Y. Vijayendra, his son-in-law R.N. Sohan Kumar, former BJP minister S.N. Krishnaiah Setty and Davalagiri Property Developers Ltd, partly owned by his kin, have been named co-accused along with other close associates in the cases.

The cases were filed for offences allegedly committed by the chief minister and his kin under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The permission to launch criminal proceedings against Yeddyurappa was sought by the two advocates Dec 28 following revelations that Yeddyurappa had favoured his kin with prime land in and around Bangalore.

Legal luminary and party’s Rajya Sabha member Ram Jethmalani and senior counsel Satyapal Jain are likely to assist the chief minister in drafting the petition against the governor’s order in the high court.

“The chief minister will also press for the recall of the governor with the party leadership, as a party’s delegation, including BJP parliamentarians from the state, is scheduled to meet President Pratibha Patil at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Monday,” the official said.

“I will strongly recommend to the party high command to seek the recall of the governor by the president for his attempt to destabilise a democratically elected government in the state,” Yeddyurappa told reporters here before leaving for Delhi.

The chief minister, who declined to quit Saturday, asserted that he would fight till the end to prove that he did not commit any offence and complete his five-year term.