Bangalore : Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti, who quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and returned to it later, has a piece of advice for B S Yeddyurappa. Set aside your ego and return, she appealed to the former Karnataka chief minister.

 Yeddyurappa also recently quit the BJP and floated a regional party called the Karnataka Janatha Party (KJP). Yeddyurappa hopes his party will come up trumps in the May 5 Assembly elections.

Uma on Friday reminded Yeddyurappa about how her own attempts to float an outfit came a cropper.

Back in the ranks of the BJP, Uma Bharti did not mince words when she said: “Yeddyurappa is always going to be a swayam sevak. I just want to tell him that the nation comes first and then the individual. Without the BJP the nation will never be strong,” Bharti said.

Uma was expelled from the BJP in 2005 after her opposition to the choice of Shivraj Singh Chauhan as MP chief minister. She launched her own outfit, Bharathiya Janashakti Party, which failed prompting her return to the parent party in 2011.

After taking part in BJP’s election campaign at Malleshwaram in Bangalore, she told reporters that she regarded Yeddyurappa as her brother and hoped the party’s top leadership would take initiatives to bring him back.

Speaking from her own experience, Uma said those leaving the BJP found it hard to stay away from the cadres.

“Those who leave the BJP can only harm themselves. It does not matter whether you have your own party or political agenda, you intend to harm yourself. I took two years to join back the party after getting a request from the party in 2009. It takes time for a person to get accustomed to the BJP again,” she said.

Uma does not consider herself eligible to take the lead in bringing Yeddyurappa back.
Yeddyurappa quit the BJP last year and launched the KJP. He was forced to resign as the chief minister in 2010 following his indictment by Karnataka Lokayukta in a mining case. The KJP did not do well in the recently held local body polls.

But Yeddyurappa has fielded candidates in 205 Assembly constituencies.

Asked how far the corruption issue in Karnataka had dented the party’s image at the national level, Uma said: “Unlike the UPA or the Congress which had always compromised on corruption when their ministers were sent to jail, we stayed away from the issue. The BJP ministers quit after the courts issued orders for their arrest.”-DH News