Yeddyurappa had resigned as a Member of Legislative Assembly and from the primary membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on 30 November 2012.

In the 2013 Karnataka Legislative Assembly Elections, the party under the leadership of Yeddyurappa won 6 of the 203 seats it had contested and secured about 10% of the total votes polled.

Although, the party did not make any significant gains in the elections, it had restricted the BJP to just 40 seats, compared to the 110 it had in the outgoing assembly.

[2] Though the KJP was formed as a splinter of the BJP, it did not profess Hindutva as its ideology and instead adopted a centrist social democratic stance with a secular outlook.

In September 2013, Yeddyurappa announced that the party would support the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance to ensure the victory of Narendra Modi.