Yeddyurappa claims threat to life; opposition ridicules him

MYSORE - Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa Monday said some people were resorting to “black magic” to eliminate him, a claim that immediately drew ridicule from the opposition parties.

“I am not even sure of returning home after going to Vidhana Soudha (state secretariat building with offices for the chief minister and other ministers),” Yeddyurappa told reporters in this city of palaces, about 140 km from Bangalore.

“There is a conspiracy to finish me off, and those who indulged in ‘black magic’ to unseat me from power but failed are indulging in it,” the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first chief minister in south India said without identifying anybody.

Yeddyurappa’s official residence is about a km from the Vidhana Soudha and his private residence is in upmarket Dollars Colony, about 10 km away.

The opposition Congress and Janata Dal-Secular parties dismissed Yeddyurappa’s claim as a ’sham’ and accused him of indulging in “black magic” to hang on to power despite land scandals allegedly involving him.

“If the chief minister himself says there is threat to his life, what protection he can give to the state’s people?” state Congress chief G.Parameshwara asked.

“It is he who indulges in such things,” said Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah of the Congress. JD-S leader in the assembly H.D.Revanna echoed Siddaramaiah’s view.

Asked how black magic could be threat to his life, Yeddyurappa countered “What else is it?”.

He said he was neither scared nor would be cowed down by such attempts and would complete his term of five years. He became chief minister in May 2008.

Yeddyurappa frequently visits temples, conducts ‘yagna’ (oblation to fire god Agni), seeks blessings of religious heads and sanctions millions of rupees in his budgets to institutions run by them.

The chief minister, facing possible prosecution over land allotment to his kin, asserted that his party’s central leaders were “fully supporting” him and “nobody can dislodge” him or the BJP government in the state.

He declined to comment on reported remark of film actor and BJP parliamentarian Shatrughan Sinha that Yeddyurappa must quit in view of corruption and land scam allegations.

“I won’t comment, except to say the party high command is fully supporting me,” he said.