His own decision, no pressure from high command: Karnataka CM after Eshwarappa offers to resign

Bengaluru: Soon after Karnataka Minister KS Eshwarappa offered to resign on Friday following a row over his alleged role in the suicide of a contractor, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said, “it was his own decision and there was no pressure from the (BJP) high command.”

The chief minister also informed that Eshwarappa is confident of coming out clean. “KS Eshwarappa spoke to me, he’s confident of coming out clean. He clearly said he has not done anything wrong. Eshwarappa has asked to begin investigation soon so that issue doesn’t embarrass others and the ruth is out soon,” he said.

Bommai added that until the row is cleared, Eshwarappa does not want to be in the Cabinet. “We don’t need to listen to whatever Congress says. There was no pressure from high command. It’s his own decision. An enquiry will be done. Let the truth come out first, then everything will be known,” he said.

Eshwarappa on Thursday said that he will hand over his resignation to Bommai tomorrow. “Tomorrow, I’m handing over the resignation letter to CM. I thank you all for your co-operation,” the state minister told reporters here.

He said that he does not want to embarrass anybody including the high command leaders of the party. The minister’s announcement came after Bommai said that Eshwarappa will continue in his cabinet and that an inquiry has been instituted after which a decision will be taken.

“The postmortem was done yesterday and now preliminary inquiry (report) will come and based on that we’ll proceed,” the chief minister said.

Notably, following the allegations, Congress and other political parties had demanded the removal of the Karnataka Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister.

Earlier, Eshwarappa had said he would not resign under pressure from the Opposition and added that “no death note was found near the body”.

“I have not seen the face of Santosh Patil, but as journalists are saying that he used to go to Delhi often. It should be investigated who booked his flight tickets and why,” he had said.

The brother of the deceased contractor on Wednesday demanded the arrest of Eshwarappa “and his close aides Ramesh and Basawaraj”.

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