BANGALORE: Keeping with his reputation of being a hard nut to crack, former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa on Saturday tried his best to avoid arrest. For almost four hours he kept everyone guessing as he entered into a “hide and seek” game with Lokayukta police who were looking to execute the Lokayukta court’s order. But Yeddyurappa had to give up finally and appear before the special Lokayukta court which sent him to judicial custody till October 22. Like everybody, Yeddyurappa also anticipated that his bail plea will be rejected by the Lokayukta special court. To avoid arrest and seek time, Yeddyurappa, as a last ditch effort, moved an exemption petition through his counsel Ravi B Naik citing “severe back-ache” as reason for his absence in court. But Justice N K Sudheendra Rao did what was unexpected by Yeddyurappa. Not only did the Justice reject his petition, but issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Yeddyurappa with a direction to Lokayukta police to produce him before the court immediately.Yeddyurappa had decided to seek time from Lokayukta court hoping a favourable decision by the High Court before which his petition seeking quashing of all proceedings is pending. But his calculations went wrong as the case was transferred to another bench following a petition by complainant Sirajin Basha.As soon as he got news of rejection of his bail plea, Yeddyurappa moved to an undisclosed destination leaving media and his partymen clueless about his whereabouts. A large contingency of the media was kept waiting outside his house on Race Course Road. Varied versions of his whereabouts came even from the police and BJP leaders. While some maintained that he had gone to meet Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Mutt of Tumkur, some said that he was in JSS Mutt at Jayanagar.Meanwhile, several ministers and party leaders visited Yeddyurappa’s house, including Ministers V Somanna, Basavaraj Bommai, Umesh Katti, RSS leader M C Jayadev, former minister Haratal Halappa and Belur Gopalakrishna.At 3 pm, Lokayukta police led by DySP Abdul Ahaad and police inspector Prasanna V Raju came to the former CM’s residence at 3 pm to serve the NBW notice. But they had to return empty handed. According to sources, the Lokayukta police searched the entire house.In the meantime Yeddyurappa after realsing that his arrest by Lokayukta police would send a wrong signal to the people, surrendered before the court and from there, headed straight to the Parappana Agrahara Jail, complying with the court order.
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