The chief minister of a southern Indian state who is accused of being at the centre of a $3.6-billion mining fraud will resign on Sunday, he said Saturday. B.S. Yeddyurappa, 68, head of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Karnataka state, announced he would quit in an official statement after national party chiefs demanded he step down.
“As per the decision taken by the senior leaders of the party and the parliamentary board in New Delhi, I will resign from the chief minister’s post,” Yeddyurappa said in the statement. A report into corrupt mining practices by the Karnataka state ombudsman named him in the scandal. Judge Santosh Hegde accused the chief minister of enabling illicit mining of iron ore in the state, which cost the public exchequer 160.8 billion rupees ($3.6 billion) between 2006 and 2010.
