Yeddyurappa quits BJP, to launch own party

Former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa today quit the BJP, accusing a section of its leadership of conspiring to drive him out of a party for which he gave 40 years of his life.

He announced at a public meeting that he had sent his resignation to Bharatiya Janata Party president Nitin Gadkari.

BS Yeddyurappa (File pic)

The 69-year-old Yeddyurappa, credited with bringing the BJP to power for the first time in Karnataka and south India in 2008, is formally launching the Karnataka Janata Party on Decemeber 9 in Haveri, 400 km north of Bangalore.

Yeddyurappa is peeved that the BJP leadership did not keep its promise to make him the state BJP chief soon after he was forced to give up the chief minister's post in July 2011 over mining bribery charges.

He said that he was leaving BJP with a "heavy heart" as "I have given my 40 years of life to build it".

Ahead of the public meeting he prayed at a temple and turned emotional and shed tears while talking to reporters.

"I have sacrificed my life to build the party. I am leaving it because some in the party don't want me to continue, " he said.

Yeddyurappa repeated that he was put in the dock by some in the BJP though he was not guilty.

He said he had asked BJP ministers and legislators supporting him not to quit the party now as "I want the Jagadish Shettar government to complete the term" which ends in May next year.

The BJP has 119 members in the 225-strong assembly, whose term ends in May next.

Yeddyurappa and his supporters claim that over 40 of these legislators, including several ministers, were ready to join the new party.

However Shettar, the BJP's third chief minister in its over four years of rule in Karnataka and state BJP chief KS Eshwarappa claim that only a handful of party legislators would join the new outfit.