Former chief minister of Karnataka Jagadish Shettar on Thursday, January 25 returned to the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday, January 25, after meeting Amit Shah and other party leaders in Delhi.
Jagadish Shettar had resigned from the BJP after he was denied a ticket for the May 10 state Assembly election from the Hubli-Dharwad central constituency. Shettar had won from the seat three consecutive times from 2008, 2013, and 2018.
“With a heavy heart I will resign from the party. I am the one who has built and raised this party. They (some party leaders) created a situation for me to resign from the party,” Shettar said while resigning from the party.
After his switch, then state party chief Yediyurappa said, “Shettar made a mistake. We would have made him a Rajya Sabha member and Union minister.”
Upon joining Congress, he was fielded from the same seat, which he lost to a BJP candidate by a massive 34,000 votes. He blamed his loss on “money power and pressure tactics” and accused his BJP rival of “distributing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 (notes)” among voters.
The Congress has, however, made him a MLC, a position he has now quit to rejoin the BJP.
The Lingayat leader had also alleged that there was a systematic conspiracy against him and added that he was never an indurate person but the party forced him to become one.
BJP sources said Shettar had met home minister Amit Shah and its national president J P Nadda as he was persuaded to rejoin the saffron organisation which he had quit in a huff after being denied a ticket to contest the assembly polls.
(with inputs from PTI)
