BANGALORE: Two-days after BJP gave him informal invitation to join BJP, former chief minister and KJP supremo B S Yeddyurappa expressed his intention to return to the party fold in mid-January.

The Lingayat strongman on Sunday in his home town Shikaripur in Shimoga district said this was the last KJP programme and in first week of January he would give “sweet news”.

“In the current context of politics, Narendra Modi ’s hand should be strengthened. In this view an appropriate stand will be taken duing January first week,” Yeddyurappa said with out spelling the details of his move.

BJP president Rajnath Singh extended invitation for Yeddyurappa to join BJP through BJP general secretary H N Ananth Kumar on Friday. Kumar though bête noire of former CM appealed in a special executive committee meeting of the party that “all brothers who quit the party to come back”. “If the party has to win a sizeable number of Lok Sabha seats in 2014, leaders who had left should return to the party fold,” Kumar said.

Further, the BJP in the meeting said that party faced defeat in the 2013 assembly polls due to split in it. “Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi has given a call to free India from the corrupt Congress. If we have to achieve this, all our brothers who quit will have to come back,” Kumar said.

A small team of state BJP leaders has been formed to hold talks with Yeddyurappa and fix a date for his return. Yeddyurappa’s return likely after Sankranti and may chose Davanagere, centre of Karnataka, as the venue for the public function to return to the party fold.

After differences with some leaders in the party, Yeddyurappa quit BJP and floated Karnataka Janata Party in December 2012 at Haveri district. The KJP was seen as one of the reason for the defeat of BJP in assembly elections held in May this year.