 Jagadish Shettar would replace D V Sadananda Gowda as Karnataka CM. BJP President Nitin Gadkari  announced this at his residence at New Delhi.
“According to the present situation in Karnataka, he (Gowda) has told me that he is resigning from the chief minister’s post,” Gadkari told the media at his residence here.
Gowda, a victim of Karnataka’s never ending caste politics, said he had no complaints and would abide by the party decision.
“He handed me his resignation as a good party worker. We have accepted his resignation,” he said.
Gadkari added that “keeping in mind the future of Karnataka, we have decided to give the leadership (in the state) to Jagadish Shettar”.
Shettar will be the third chief minister in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Karnataka government which took power in 2008. The decision for the change was taken Saturday by the party’s core group here.
Gowda told reporters outside Karnataka Bhavan here that he had quit as an “obedient soldier” of the party.
“My central leaders have taken a decision to change the leadership in Karnataka for some political reason. As an obedient soldier of my party, the verdict given by central leaders has been whole-heatedly accepted by me,” Gowda said.
“I will be a loyal worker in the future as well. The incoming chief minister will be extended all cooperation by me.”
Gowda, who came to New Delhi Saturday evening amid turmoil in the Karnataka BJP, met party leaders L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley andAnanth Kumar at Advani’s residence. He met Gadkari Sunday.
BJP sources say the party is planning to make Gowda a Rajya Sabha member. He was a Lok Sabha member before he was handpicked by Yeddyurappa to succeed him in July last year.
Gadkari was all praise for Gowda.
“Sadanandaji has done excellent work, there are no complains of corruption or any other complaint against him,” he said.
He also made it clear that the step was taken eyeing the assembly polls in Karnataka and the Lok Sabah polls of 2014.
“All leaders should unite and put in their full efforts in making BJP win the upcoming assembly and Lok Sabha elections.”
Yeddyurappa is the leading figure of the Lingayat community in the state which makes 17 percent of the state’s population.
Gadkari said party leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh will go to Bangalore Monday for discussions with BJP leaders there.
Gowda’s exit follows a sustained campaign by his predecessor, B.S. Yeddyurappa, the party’s first chief minister in south India who wanted to see the back of Gowda.
Yeddyurappa had to quit after the Lokayukta indicted him in a mining scandal and other corruption charges.
Gowda was Yeddyurappa’s choice to replace him over Shettar.
But after the Karnataka High Court struck down the Lokayukta report, Yeddyurappa stepped up efforts to get back as the chief minister but Gowda failed to oblige him.
On Friday, Shettar and eight other ministers resigned from the ministry, forcing the party’s national leaders to agree to a leadership change. Shettar is presently the rural development minister of Karnataka.
Shettar, 56, hails from north Karnataka and belongs to the politically powerful Lingayat community, which is generally believed to be backing the BJP since the 1990s after feeling neglected by the Congress.
The community has a large presence in northern Karnataka.
Ironically, Shettar’s caste that has now propelled him to the top post went against him a year back when BJP’s first chief minister in the state, B.S. Yeddyurappa, was forced to quit over corruption charges.
Yeddyurappa is also a Lingayat, the caste group that makes up for 17 percent of Karnataka’s 65 million population.
Fearing Shettar may emerge as a rival power centre, Yeddyurappa scuttled his bid and insisted that Gowda, a Vokkaliga, another politically influential caste group, should succeed him.