Despite the humiliation in the recent Karnataka assembly elections, a defeat wrought largely by desertion of BS Yeddyurappa from the BJP camp and forming his own party, the BJP isn’t exactly counting out a return of the former chief minister to the saffron fold. The party, though, clarified that there’s no such proposal “as of now”.

While Yeddy, as the BJP’s first CM in Karnataka is called, cools his heels in the hill station Ooty and has ruled out having any truck with either the Congress or BJP for the next general elections, back in Bangalore BJP’s state president Prahlad Joshi did not reject downright the suggestion to bring him back to the party. But “as of now, there is no proposal,” Joshi told PTI.

Asked specifically about the chances of Yeddyurappa’s return, as former chief ministers Kalyan Singh, Madan Lal Khurana and Uma Bharti had done in the past, Joshi said, "That is not my cup of tea; it is central leadership's (call). I can only say no such proposal is before the party for now."

While Joshi admitted that “trifurcation of traditional BJP votes” by Yeddyurappa’s Karnataka Janatha Paksha (KJP) and B Sriramulu's BSR Congress, caused the ruling party “major damage”, his words are being seen as indicating that the BJP may not be completely antithetical to the former CM’s return. Joshi’s open-ended statement could be seen as a wait-and-watch approach, with the BJP likely to weigh the pros and cons if the Yeddyurappa camp approaches it for a rapprochement.

In Ooty, meanwhile, Yeddyurappa expressed hope that the KJP by itself would perform better in the Lok Sabha elections, whenever they are held, the Deccan Herald reported (read the report here).