Yeddyurappa to reshuffle Ministry before foreign tour

Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa will reshuffle his fledgeling Ministry to accommodate new entrants to the party before embarking upon a tour of the United States later this month.

Disclosing this to reporters in Bangalore yesterday, BJP’s state unit President Sadananda Gowda said Horticulture Minister S K Bellubi has been asked to “sacrifice” his post to enable former Minister Umesh Katti, who recently quit the Assembly as a JD (S) MLA and joined the BJP, to be inducted into the Ministry.

Gowda justified Yeddyurappa’s decision to ask Bellubi to make way for Umesh Katti to stabilize the BJP Government in the State, which had fallen short of three members to secure a simple majority in the 224-member Legislative Assembly.

Katti is among the seven Opposition MLAs, who had resigned from the Assembly and joined the BJP. Though three Opposition MLAs, who had resigned from the Assembly, had already been inducted into the Ministry, the BJP leadership has appealed to some more Ministers to quit and make way the new entrants to the party.

Yeddyurappa will reshuffle the 34-member Ministry before embarking on a tour of the United States to participate in the conference of Association of Kannada Kootas of America (AKKA) scheduled to begin in Chicago on August 29.

Gowda claimed that the party leadership had already convinced Bellubi to quit the Ministry and added that the Horticulture Minister is expected to tender the resignation letter to the Chief Minister on Sunday. Gowda claimed that the Chief Minister had promised to give a suitable post to Bellubi.

However, Bellubi, who had earlier claimed that he would abide by the party leadership’s decision to drop him from the Ministry, struck a discordant note after protests by his supporters in his native Bijapur.

“I am not ready to quit because the people in my constituency want me to continue”, Bellubi told reporters referring to the violent protests in Bijapur on Thursday in which his angry supporters hurled stones at police and Government-owned buses, besides staging road-blockades. “I will have to go by the sentiments of the people, who have elected me”, Bellubi said.