Twin setbacks for B S Yeddyurappa

In a double jolt to B S Yeddyurappa, Assembly Speaker today put on hold resignations of 12 ruling BJP MLAs loyal to him, even as Karnataka Janata Party's former founder removed the former Chief Minister from the party's Presidentship.

The rebel MLAs identified with Yeddyurappa submitted their resignation letters in person to Speaker K G Bopaiah, quitting their assembly membership.

Bopaiah, who had a one-on-one meeting with the MLAs to ascertain whether they were doing so on their own, later put on hold the resignations, a move by Yeddyurappa to push the Jagadish Shettar government into a crisis ahead of the budget session beginning on February 4.

Yeddyurappa slammed Bopaiah's action, terming it as a "murder of democracy" and demanded his resignation.

"The BJP hatched the conspiracy to disqualify 12 MLAs supporting me only yesterday and Bopaiah is acting like a puppet at the hands of the ruling party", he charged.

The MLAs had tried to submit their resignations to Bopaiah on Saturday, but he was not in station, an issue over which they cried foul and submitted copies of the letters to Governor H R Bharadwaj.

In a counter offensive, two BJP legislators had petitioned the Speaker yesterday, seeking disqualification of the 12 rebel MLAs.

In another jolt, KJP founder president Padmanabha Prasanna has sent a communication to the Election Commission, stating that the party's emergency executive meeting on Dec 20, 2012 had decided to revoke (withdraw) the decision to nominate Yeddyurappa as state unit president.

After breaking ranks with BJP, Yeddyurappa had taken over as KJP president at a rally at Haveri in North Karnataka on Dec 9 2012. KJP had been in existence earlier but became prominent after Yeddyurappa walked into it and formally launched it at the Haveri rally.

Prasanna in his Jan 3 letter to the EC, released to the press here, said KJP's emergency executive committee has decided that he would retain the post as president.

... contd.

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