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B S Yeddyurappa on Sunday escalated his campaign to reclaim the chief ministership of Karnataka, setting a 48-hour deadline to the BJP central leadership to remove D V Sadananda Gowda.

Increasing the pressure on party leadership in Delhi, the former chief minister and his supporters prepared for the end game by herding away around 55 legislators, including several ministers to a resort on the City’s outskirts.

It is obvious that Yeddyurappa is trying to drive a hard bargain with the party central leaders, flexing his muscles with just three days left for the presentation of the state budget proposals for 2012-13 in the state legislature.

For the first time, Yeddyurappa came out in the open on Sunday, seeking a change of leadership in the state. Flanked by his one-time bete noire Jagadish Shettar and close associate and minister Basavaraj Bommai at his Race Course Road residence, 
Yeddyuruppa announced that he had the support of 55 MLAs and another 15 legislators would be joining him on Monday. The BJP has a total of 121 MLAs, including the Speaker and nominated member in the Assembly.

“When I had to resign as chief minister in July last, there were 70 MLAs with me. Today, eight months later and in changed circumstances, I have the same number. Besides, Shettar is with me. Somehow, I seem to have an attachment with the number 70. It is for the central leadership to take a decision,” Yeddyurappa told reporters.

For Gowda, the rebellion against him could not have come on a worse day, as he was celebrating his first birthday as chief minister on Sunday.

Shettar said the central leaders who had promised to reinstate Yeddyurappa if he was exonerated of the criminal charges in mining scams, should take note of the “changed circumstances”, referring to the the Karnataka High Court string down the portion of the Lokayukta’s findings on illegal mining indicting the former chief minister.

Bommai said the legislature party meeting would  elect the new leader “democratically”. 

Yeddyurappa and his loyalists got into a bus and moved to the Golden Palms resort on the outskirts of the City, where they are likely to be closeted for the next two days. Ministers Bommai, C M Udasi, Jagadish Shettar, Shobha Karandlaje, M P Renukacharya and Revu Naik Belamagi also accompanied him.

Simultaneously, Yeddyurappa dispatched the MPs loyal to him to New Delhi to mount pressure on party central leadeship. G S Basavaraj said as many as 10 MPs would meet Nitin Gadkari on Monday in support of their demand that Yeddyurappa be reinstated as chief minister.

As a compromise, Yeddyurappa may even agree to install Shettar as the chief minister. “At any cost Yeddyurappa does not want Sadananda Gowda to continue as chief minister,” a Yeddyurappa loyalist said.