BSY faction steps up pressure to make Shettar CM

Jagadish Shettar, who is rooting to become the next chief minister of Karnataka, has taken away 48 MLAs, 11 MLCs and 8 MPs in a bid to put pressure on the central leadership. All these leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party are at Shettar's residence and are threatening to resign in case there is no change of chief minister in Karnataka.

The leaders, who were present in Shettar's residence since Sunday morning, have pledged their support on paper and said that Shettar be made the CM at any cost. Shettar even released a list of his supporters to the media.

Although they have not taken any decision to resign as yet, it is clear that they are stepping up the pressure on the high command to change the leadership. The high command has not shown any interest in any change in the leadership as of now, which has the led the Yeddyurappa-backed Shettar faction to get more aggressive.

Lok Sabha member Suresh C Angadi blamed the party's central leadership for the crisis, saying he had brought it to the notice of top leaders Nitin Gadkari, L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, besides senior leader from the state H N Ananth Kumar and "no body is caring".

"If the party high-command does not take a decision by July 5, I want to warn that the party's high command will be responsible for the consequences", Angadi said.

Lok Sabha members G S Basavaraj, G M Siddeshwar and B Y Raghavendra (Yeddyurappa's son) and Rajya Sabha member Prabhakar Kore were among those present at the meeting.

Meanwhile, BJP central leadership emissary Pradhan, who is in-charge of party affairs in Karntaka, appealed to the nine ministers to withdraw their resignation.

"Their withdrawal will facilitate further talks", said Pradhan, who also met RSS leaders for their view on the crisis.

He said he would apprise senior party leaders about the "Karnataka situation" and hoped that "everything would be sorted out" and the crisis resolved. "Appropriate action will be taken at appropriate time".

With inputs from PTI