New Delhi, November 22
The BJP remained tongue-tied for the fifth day today as its Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa remained defiant and unresponsive to their pleas on stepping down to save them the embarrassment on account of his much publicised land scam.

The BJP is currently leading a campaign against the Prime Minister and his UPA government, stalling Parliament proceedings for the third week now, but is left with hardly a leg to stand on since Yeddyurappa’s action of denotifying acres of land worth several hundred crores and distributing it among his sons and daughters surfaced.

He added to his party’s discomfiture today by flying to Delhi, (where he was anxiously awaited by Arun Jaitley) in the Prime Minister’s special plane from Puttaparthi, where the two met for the 29th Convocation of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning.

Apart from diluting BJP’s corruption plank against the Prime Minister and the Congress party, political observers saw in this a clear message to his party that if pushed to the wall, he had other political options as well.

And even as Jaitley, delegated the responsibility of persuading Yeddyurappa to resign, sat all day with fingers crossed, waiting for him, Yedyurappa took a special defence helicopter flight immediately upon alighting from the Prime Minister’s plane and flew off to Vaishno Devi. He returned to Delhi late in the evening but kept the BJP leaders waiting. Ruling out his resignation, Yeddyurappa said in Karnataka Bhawan, “There is no question of my resignation. I will not even consider it. Nobody has asked for it.” Stating the purpose of his visit, he said: “I came to Delhi to meet my party MPs.” When asked if he was avoiding meeting the BJP top brass, he said, “That is not correct. I will meet my all-India leaders later.”

Earlier Sushma Swaraj disclosed: “Jaitley has been asked by the party high command to speak to Yeddyurappa. All of us are keen to accommodate his concerns. We have to take him on board on his successor.” Failing to make contact with Yeddyurappa, the three BJP leaders, namely party president Nitin Gadkari, Jaitley and former president M Venkaiah Naidu, given the responsibility of ensuring a smooth changeover in Karnataka, restricted their deliberations to MLAs many of whom are with Yeddyurappa.