Fresh spat between Yeddyurappa and Bhardwaj

Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa has said he will request the President of India to recall state Governor HR Bhardwaj.

Yeddyurappa told NDTV that he would write to the President on Friday and had sought an appointment with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Jan 24 regarding his demand.

His latest outburst on the Governor comes after the Raj Bhavan on Thursday allegedly describing the State Cabinet’s request not to accord prosecution sanction against the chief minister as a case of a ”thief admonishing a policeman.”

For the past few months the coalition government, headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party is having tussle with Raj Bhawan after Yeddyurappa survived twice the no-motion confidence following rebellion by over dozen of legislators over alleged corruption charges.

While the Governor hit out at “corruption” in the government, the BJP called him an “agent of the Congress”.

Recently, Yeddyurappa had written a letter to the Governor asking him to turn down a demand by a lawyers’ forum for his prosecution in connection with alleged land scams.

“It would be nothing short of a farce and a colourable exercise on the part of Your Excellency to even consider any sanction for prosecution,” he had said, adding that such a decision would not be fair as the state government had already appointed an independent judicial commission of inquiry to probe land dealings from 1995 to 2010.

Reacting to reporters’ queries on BJP’s plan to call a Karnataka-wide bandh if he sanctioned Yeddyurappa and State Home Minister R Ashoka’s prosecution, the Governor shot back, ?ulta chor kotwal ko daante,? ( a case of the thief admonishing the policeman), local newspapers reported Friday quoting the Governor as saying.

The Governor, however, said he would take a decision on sanctioning prosecution against Yeddyurappa and Ashoka within the next two days.

Meanwhile, the BJP went on an offensive against the Governor, alleging that Bhardwaj had already ?pre-judged? to give his consent to prosecute Yeddyurappa.
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BJP sources said the CM’s letter to the President was being drafted by the central leadership in consultation with legal experts.

The BJP plans to stage a dharna with party legislators in front of Raj Bhavan on Jan 25 and call a statewide bandh on Jan 27 if the Governor sanctions the prosecution.