Jagdish Shettar likely to be new Karnataka Chief Minister

New Delhi, July 7 (ANI): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) core group, which met here today decided to replace Sadananda Gowda with Jagdish Shettar as the Karnataka Chief Minister.

Shettar, who is the rural development minister, is the choice for the top post of former Karnataka chief minister B.S Yeddyurappa, who is still calling the shots in Karnataka BJP even after his unceremonious exit as chief minister last year.

Jagdish Shettar will be the third BJP chief minister in the state in four years since the party came to power there in 2008.

After the core group meeting, BJP spokesperson Ravishankar Prasad said that Gowda will come to Delhi on Saturday evening and will be meeting party chief Nitin Gadkari, L K Advani and other leaders. "A decision will be announced after that," Prasad told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Gowda said that the senior leaders of the party would take all possible steps to resolve the differences among the state leaders.

"I will meet my party president when I go to Delhi. Any decision will be taken by the party leadership," Gowda told the media in Bangalore.

The crisis in the Karnataka BJP intensified last week with nine ministers resigned from the State Cabinet thereby projecting a show of strength in their campaign for ousting Chief Minister Gowda.

The ministers, who quit earlier were Jagadish Shettar (Rural Development), CM Udasi (PWD), Murugesh Nirani (Industries), V Somanna (Housing), Umesh Katti (Agriculture), Basavaraj Bommai (Water Resources), Revu Naik Belamagi (Libraries and Animal Husbandry), M P Renukacharya (Excise) and Raju Gowda (Small Scale Industries). (ANI)