BJP spokesman Ravishankar Prasad said that the party has decided that it was time for a change in the Karnataka BJP leadership. He also said that Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh will go to Bangalore on Friday to select a new leader.
The top brass of the BJP met on Thursday morning at the residence of BJP president Nitin Gadkari, who met Yeddyurappa late Wednesday night.
Yeddyurappa, who continued to be defiant and ruled out his resignation, left for Bangalore early Thursday morning. He has convened of meeting of party MLAs in the morning in Bangalore.
Sources said usually a meeting of the parliamentary board, the party's highest decision making body, is called only when some big decision has to be taken, and this is also a pointer that Yeddyurappa's time is up.
Upon his arrival in New DElhi on Wednesday evening with his ministers and close confidants, Yeddyurappa appeared defiant to resign.
In the meeting with the party president and senior central party leaders Rajnath Singh, M Venkaiah Naidu and Dharmendra Pradhan, the political fallout of the Lokayukta report was discussed with Yeddyurappa.
The chief minister tried to convince the central leadership that the charges made in the report were not new and a court case was already pending in the matter.
However, the central leadership conveyed to him that his continuance would weaken BJP's fight against corruption, especially when the Monsoon Session of Parliament begins next week.