Buckling under pressure exerted by Mr B. S. Yeddyurappa, the BJP today decided to replace Mr Sadananda Gowda with Mr Jagdish Shettar as Chief Minister of Karnataka, marking the third change in the State in four years.

The decision was taken at the BJP core group meeting here today, sources said.

Mr Shettar, a Lingayat leader, who is the Rural Development Minister, is the choice of Mr Yeddyurappa, who calls the shots in the Karnataka BJP even after his unceremonious exit as Chief Minister last year. He 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, the BJP spokesperson Mr Ravishankar Prasad said Mr Gowda will come to Delhi this evening and will be meeting party chief, Mr Nitin Gadkari, Mr L. K. Advani and other leaders.

“A decision will be announced after that,” Mr Prasad told presspersons.

Mr Gowda took over from Mr Yeddyurappa in August last year.

Mr Yeddyurappa, who was removed as Chief Minister last year in the wake of corruption allegations against him, has been insisting for some time now that Mr Gowda should be replaced with his close associate Mr Shettar.

However, Mr Gowda, who fell out with the Yeddyurappa camp, had pleaded with the party that it should not take any decision in “haste” and sought to assert that he has strived to give a corruption-free administration in the last 11 months, after he was appointed as Chief Minister.

With this change of guard, the political history witnessed in Karnataka from 1989 to 1994 of having three Chief Ministers in a span of five years has had a repeat.

Congress, which returned to power with a massive mandate in the State in 1989, replaced Mr Veerendra Patil with Mr S. Bangarappa. Mr Veerappa Moily replaced Mr Bangarappa following heightened dissidence against him. In the Assembly polls held in 1994, the Janata Dal trounced the Congress.

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