BJP top brass confident K'taka crisis will be overcome

Bharatiya Janata Party top brass is confident of tiding over the present crisis in Karnataka till the presidential poll gets over but appears to be getting increasingly reconciled to replacing Sadanand Gowda with Jagdish Shettar as chief minister soon thereafter.

BJP sources said the Central leadership will prevail over former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and his loyalists to give up the July 5 deadline set by them for removing Gowda.

After the BJP top leadership conveyed to Yeddyurappa that he cannot be reinstated as chief minister due to the pending graft cases against him, he has been demanding that fellow Lingayat leader and minister Jagdish Shettar be made the chief minister. Gowda, a Yeddyurappa loyalist, has lost his trust after becoming CM.

Gowda is reaching the capital tomorrow to attend a meeting of BJP-NDA Chief Ministers with NDA working chairperson L K Advani on the presidential elections. He will also attend the marriage reception of BJP President Nitin Gadkari's son on Monday evening.

Sources said a meeting of Gowda, Gadkari, Karnataka in-charge Dharmendra Pradhan and other senior leaders on the crisis will take place.

Party leaders, however, claimed there was no crisis in the Karnataka unit. "There is no crisis in Karnataka. All the problems that have occurred will be fully resolved," senior party leader Rajnath Singh told reporters.

BJP leaders are reaching out to both the Gowda and Yeddyurappa factions to convince them to maintain calm till the presidential election takes place on July 19.