Yeddyurappa applies for NDA membership

Taking the initial formal step to be part of the National Democratic Alliance, former Chief Minister and KJP President B S Yeddyurappa on Saturday asked it to consider making his party an alliance partner of the BJP-led coalition while expressing support to its prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

In a letter to NDA Chairman and BJP veteran leader L K Advani, with whom he shares an uneasy relationship, Yeddyurappa requested him to involve Karnataka Janatha Party in all the deliberations of NDA by inviting it to all the meetings.

Yeddyurappa's missive comes in the midst of his repeated public posture that KJP would not merge with BJP, which he quit in the sequel to BJP central leadership's decision to remove him as Chief Minister over the illegal mining issue.

State BJP is divided on the re-entry of Yeddyurappa, whose outfit too has differences of opinion on the merger of both parties.

In his letter, Yeddyurappa drew the attention of Advani to the unanimous decision of KJP's Executive Committee to support NDA in its endeavour of making Modi the "future" Prime Minister.

He noted that KJP had won six seats in the May Assembly polls in Karnataka and secured more than 10 per cent of total valid votes polled. The Election Commission had also recognised KJP as a regional party, he said.

KJP had failed to make a mark of its own in the Assembly polls but played spoilsport to the chances of BJP, whose only government in the South crumbled leading to ressurection of the Congress rule after a long hiatus.

Yeddyurappa assured Advani of full cooperation to make  NDA a success in the Lok Sabha polls.