Reddy-Sriramulu back to cherry-picking legislators

The Bharatiya Janata Party seems to have adopted a two-pronged approach to lure MLAs to prove its majority on the floor of the House much before the 15-day deadline

Former Minister B. Sriramulu and the Reddy brothers are learnt to have been targeting “vulnerable” MLAs, specially those belonging to the Nayak community to which the former belongs. Meanwhile, the camp of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa is said to be targeting Lingayat MLAs, especially from north Karnataka.

Mr. Sriramulu and the Reddy brothers are back to playing the role they previously did in 2008 — to cobble up the support of MLAs from Opposition parties to gain a majority. In fact, he has made a statement that “BJP will prove majority with numbers beyond anyone’s imagination”. He added that there were several disgruntled elements within the Congress and the JD(S) who are in touch with them and will vote for them. BJP insiders credit Mr. Sriramulu and Reddy brothers for two Congress MLAs — Anand Singh, a mining baron from Vijayanagar,Ballari and a former BJP Minister, and Pratapgouda Patil, a former BJP MLA — for going missing from the Congress camp.

Mr. Anand Singh went incommunicado on Tuesday afternoon and is said to have gone out of the State on Wednesday in a chartered flight to an undisclosed location. Congress-JD(S) chief ministerial candidate H.D. Kumaraswamy alleged that the BJP-led government at the Centre was misusing Central agencies to threaten MLAs and Anand Singh was a live example. “They have threatened him with an Enforcement Directorate case as he himself told a Congress leader,” he said. Mr. Pratapgouda Patil, Congress MLA from Maski, Raichur, who won with a slender margin of 213 votes, also a party-hopper from BJP and belonging to the same caste as Mr. Sriramulu, has been unreachable since Thursday morning, sources confirmed. He left Eagleton Resort where Congress MLAs have been staying, on the pretext of ill-health to only go incommunicado, sources confirmed. BJP sources said he had also left the State.

Meanwhile, Mr. Yeddyurappa and his close associates are pumping up efforts to woo Lingayat MLAs from Congress-JD(S). A strategist involved in the efforts told The Hindu that they have short-listed 15 Lingayat MLAs and are trying to reach out to them. They are appealing to them not to take part in subversion of the mandate to bring down a Lingayat Chief Minister. He, however, refused to comment on the success or failure of the plan. Speculation has been rife about the loyalty of Rajashekhar B. Patil, Humnabad MLA, as both sides claimed he was on their side. Sources said a team of former Lingayat Ministers were tasked with reaching out to Lingayat MLAs from their regions.