Bangalore:  Just hours after former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa was arrested and sent to judicial custody in a land case, he has been shifted to a hospital in Bangalore after he complained of chest pain.

There are reports that Mr Yeddyurappa had vomited thrice within an hour, following which he was shifted to the hospital at 1:45 am. Mr Yeddyurappa has been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of the Jayadeva Hospital. Sources in the hospital say his condition is stable.

Mr Yeddyurappa is expected to apply for bail in the Karnataka High Court on Monday. Sources say he might stay in the hospital till then.

Early Sunday morning, Karnataka Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda, who was personally chosen by Mr Yeddyurappa as his successor, and other ministers visited the former chief minister at the hospital.

“He is under treatment and I had discussions with the doctor. He said that the diagnosis and other things will continue today or tomorrow… It takes 48 hours to come out with the report… At present he is not in a position to speak. He is under observation,” said Mr Gowda.

The former chief minister was sent to jail yesterday after much drama. Mr Yeddyurappa surrendered at around 3.45 pm in a Lokayukta court and was sent to judicial custody till October 22, Saturday next. This after a special court hearing land cases against the BJP leader rejected his anticipatory bail plea and issued an arrest warrant.

This is a man who walked in the rain along with his many MLAs to submit his resignation as Chief Minister to the Governor in July, after days of refusing to quit. His surrender was no less dramatic. Mr Yeddyurappa was not present before the court for his bail hearing and sent a medical certificate instead stating he had a back ache and so should be exempted from personal appearance. The court did not see sufficient reason for absence and turned down the request.
 
It then issued a non-bailable warrant against Mr Yeddyurappa. Three Lokayukta police officials reached his residence with the warrant and waited. But Mr Yeddyurappa was not home. A few hours later, he landed up at the Lokayukta court and surrendered.
 
Saturday’s events have been acutely embarrassing for Mr Yeddyurappa’s party; the BJP’s senior-most leader LK Advani is on the 5th day of his 38-day Jan Chetna Yatra with the central agenda of attacking the UPA government on the issue of corruption. “We will adopt zero tolerance towards corruption, we will fight this case legally”, BJP General Secretary J P Nadda said.
 
Senior leader Dhananjaya Kumar also sought to distance the yatra from Yeddyurappa saying, “Advaniji’s yatra has nothing to do with this, it is just to create awareness about bigger corruption at the Government of India level.”
 
The Congress, however, quickly pounced on the political opportunity that Mr Yeddyurappa’s incarceration has presented it. It said Mr Yeddyurappa’s arrest had exposed the BJP’s doublespeak on the issue of corruption. “Here is a former Chief Minister who took two years to step down, here is a former Chief Minister whom the BJP didn’t even dare to touch, he did leave, he left shouting, screaming hanging on to the very last minute on a date, at the time of his own choosing and it is that person whom the court has denied bail, I think it speaks volumes of the morality practised by the BJP,” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said.  
 
The cases being heard against Mr Yeddyurappa pertain to denotification of land near Bangalore while he was Chief Minister. He has been accused of illegally denotifying land that had been reserved for projects of public interest to benefit people close to him.

The Lokayukta court has also denied bail to former minister SN Krishnaiah Setty, another accused in the case. Mr Yeddyurappa’s two sons – BJP Lok Sabha member BY Raghavendra and BY Vijayendra – and his son-in-law R Sohan Kumar have also been accused of conspiring to denotify land in and around Bangalore in return for monetary gains. They were granted conditional bail today.
 
Mr Yeddyurappa was forced to resign as Chief Minister of Karnataka on July 31 after then Lokayukta Santosh Hegde’s report on illegal mining accused him of accepting kickbacks from companies that were given mining licences.

Justice Santosh Hegde had filed several reports that alleged that Mr Yeddyurappa misused his public office fairly often to benefit his friends and family. His prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act – on criminal charges – was sanctioned by the Governor, HR Bhardwaj.