Shettar to be inducted, Shobha to bow out of Karnataka Cabinet

New Delhi, Nov 6 : The weeklong crisis in the ruling Karnataka BJP seem to have been resolved with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa agreeing to take Assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar into the Cabinet in place of Rural Development Minister Shobha Karandlaje and constitute a core-committee coordinate with the party and State Government.

A formula to this effect was evolved after a series of meetings of the party's Central leadership and the loyalists and rebels for the last several days. The Chief Minister has also agreed to shuffle and reallocate the district in charge ministers, Karnataka BJP president Sadananda Gowda told reporters.

After this announcement, Mr Yeddyurappa went to meet Leader of Opposition L K Advani, along with Party president Rajnath Singh, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, senior leaders M Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj and Ananth Kumar.

He has been asked by the party leadership to stay back so that the leadership would make the announcement in the presence of both groups tomorrow.

After his meeting with Mr Advani, the Chief Minister accompanied by his senior ministers, called on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to intimate him about the developments and the solution formulated.

Tourism Minister G Janardhana Reddy who had been leading the rebel MLAs in the crisis that came to the fore last month, has gone back to Hyderabad for consultation with party legislators and is expected to come back early tomorrow. All these details were already worked out, but for some reason Mr Reddy insisted that he would not have any discussion with the Chief Minister but ultimately had to relent.

This would imply that he would have to wind up his rebel camp of the party MLAs, party sources said.

The leadership has offered face saver for both groups for the sake of peace. There will be no change of leadership, but at the same time his powers have been pruned and will have to deal with a much stronger cabinet colleagues than in the past, sources said.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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