A week after snapping his four decade old association with BJP, former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Thursday dubbed it 'a bigger evil' than Congress and Janata Dal-Secular and vowed never to return to his former party.
"It is 100 per cent. BJP is a bigger evil than Congress or JDS", Yeddyurappa, who is set to formally launch his regional outfit Karnataka Janata Party at Haveri on December 9, said.
The 70-year-old former BJP strongman, credited with bringing the first ever BJP government to power in the South, said in reply to a question "I will not return to my previous party under any circumstances in my lifetime".
Yeddyurappa, a product of the RSS stable, said he has distanced himself from its ideology and is now wedded to the principles of Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar and Jayaprakash Narayan.
He however, did not forget to recall his association with BJP and said "the party has given me everything right from the post of president of a municipality to Chief Minister. I have also sacrificed everything for the party. When there was talk that BJP cannot come to power in the South, with the help of workers, I brought it to power".
Training his guns on some detractors in BJP, he said "conspiracies were hatched against me when I was leader of the opposition in 2004. They did not want me continue in that post. It continued when I became Chief Minister also".
Yeddyurappa claimed support of 50 to 55 BJP MLAs and 12 MPs.
He dared BJP leaders, including Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, to take action against his supporters at the cost of his government.
"I made a mistake in making Shettar Chief Minister. But I do not want to topple it and face allegations that I was responsible for it. Hence I am maintaining restraint", he said, defending his decision not to rock the government.
