Yeddyurappa in ICU, moves High Court for bail

Former Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, arrested and jailed late last week in two corruption cases, petitioned the Karnataka High Court, Monday, for bail.

Yeddyurappa’s counsel Ravi Naik moved the petition on his behalf after the Lokayukta special court rejected his bail plea and sent the Bharatiya Janata Party leader to jail till Oct 22. The High Court had on Aug 29 rejected Yeddyurappa’s anticipatory bail plea.

68-year-old Yeddyurappa, who was arrested and sent to jail on Oct 15, complained of "discomfort" in the chest and was rushed to Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, where he is under observation in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for 48 hours.

Dr CN Manjunath, heading the five-member team attending on Yeddyurappa, said that the former CM is also suffering from high blood pressure and some urinary problems, adding that ECG and blood tests have already been conducted on Yeddyurappa who suffered a mild stroke two months ago.

An angiogram would also be conducted soon, Dr Manjunath added.

The Special Lokayukta court had on Oct 15 rejected Yeddyurappa's bail plea and issued an arrest warrant against the former chief minister, who has been facing allegations of denotifying government land in violation of laws when he was the Chief Minister.

Yeddyurappa then surrendered before the court and was remanded to judicial custody till October 22.

BJP says Yeddyurappa must resign

The BJP parliamentary board has on Thursday asked tainted Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa to tender his resignation immediately.

 BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad said that the party has decided that it was time for a change in the Karnataka BJP leadership. He also said that Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh will go to Bangalore on Friday to select a new leader.

The top brass of the BJP met on Thursday morning at the residence of BJP president Nitin Gadkari, who met Yeddyurappa late Wednesday night.

Yeddyurappa, who continued to be defiant and ruled out his resignation, left for Bangalore early Thursday morning. He has convened of meeting of party MLAs in the morning in Bangalore.

Sources said usually a meeting of the parliamentary board, the party's highest decision making body, is called only when some big decision has to be taken, and this is also a pointer that Yeddyurappa's time is up.

Upon his arrival in New DElhi on Wednesday evening with his ministers and close confidants, Yeddyurappa appeared defiant to resign.

In the meeting with the party president and senior central party leaders Rajnath Singh, M Venkaiah Naidu and Dharmendra Pradhan, the political fallout of the Lokayukta report was discussed with Yeddyurappa.

The chief minister tried to convince the central leadership that the charges made in the report were not new and a court case was already pending in the matter.

However, the central leadership conveyed to him that his continuance would weaken BJP's fight against corruption, especially when the Monsoon Session of Parliament begins next week.