Magic no: 111 — a cliffhanger likely in Karnataka

The new one-man Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of B.S. Yeddyurappa, which is seven members short of a majority of 111 in the Karnataka House of 221 members, thus faces an uphill task in proving its strength during the floor test on Saturday.

Although Karnataka has a 224-seat Assembly, polls were held for 222 seats. Elections to two seats were deferred. Further there are now only 221 members as Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy was elected from two constituencies — Channapatna and Ramangaram. The BJP won the highest number of seats with 104 MLAs. The Congress with 78 MLAs, the JD(S) with 36 and three others are also individually not in a position to form the government.

Three possibilities

Before the Assembly begins its session at 11 a.m. on Saturday, all political parties are expected to hold a meeting of their respective legislature groups and issue a whip.

There are three possible scenarios that Mr. Yeddyurappa could hope for to save his government.

In the first scenario, seven members of the Congress-JD (S) combine must indulge in cross-voting. Failing that, the Chief Minister could win the trust vote if 14 newly elected members do not take oath as MLAs before the vote of confidence procedure begins, thereby reducing the members in the House to 207. The BJP, with 104 members, will then have more than the half-way mark.

In a third scenario, 14 members of the Congress -JD (S) combine could abstain from voting when Mr. Yeddyurappa moves the confidence motion. This again reduces the number of MLAs voting to 207.

However, in case seven members of the opposition either cross-vote in favour of Mr. Yeddyurappa or do not vote at all, they face disqualification for six years under the Anti-Defection Law.

While the BJP claimed it has the support of MLAs from other parties, the Congress and the JD(S) insist that they are united and have the numbers to form the government.

However, the allies have also expressed fears of the BJP luring their MLAs and getting them to resign their seats or abstain from voting during the floor test. Congress sources meanwhile said Anand Singh, three-time MLA who won from Vijayanagara (Ballari) on their ticket, has not joined the other party MLAs. “The BJP is using the Enforcement Directorate to threaten us. It has threatened Anand Singh as well,” JD(S) State president H.D. Kumaraswamy said.

Congress leaders also released a recording of a telephonic conversation, purportedly between mining baron G. Janardhan Reddy and Basanagouda Daddala, a Congress MLA, where the former is heard wooing the latter into the BJP camp. Releasing the recording, V.S. Ugrappa, Congress MLC said it clearly proved that the BJP was resorting to "dirty tricks" to woo MLAs and engineer defections ahead of trust vote. However, Union Minister and Karnataka in-charge Prakash Javadekar rubbished the conversation as "fake."