Though the Opposition BJP was taken by surprise by the Congress decision on Friday to move its MLAs to a resort to shield them from being poached, the saffron party is reportedly still keen on executing its plans to destabilise the Janata Dal (S)–Congress government. It is learnt to be gearing up to make a few rebel Congress MLAs resign from their Assembly membership soon.
According to sources in the BJP, the party, which is in touch with four rebel Congress MLAs who skipped the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting held on Friday, will persuade them to quit their Assembly seats “any time depending on political developments”.
While a section of the BJP leaders believe that the four Congress MLAs should quit on Saturday, a few others think that it would be wiser to wait for some more days to see if the Congress initiates any disciplinary action against them for skipping the CLP meeting.
‘In batches’
Speaking to The Hindu, a senior BJP leader, who is camping with party MLAs in a hotel in Gurugram, claimed that the party was in touch with “several rebel Congress MLAs”. He claimed that the plan of the BJP was to make rebel Congress MLAs “resign in batches”.
But what came as an unexpected development for BJP leaders is the Congress decision to keep its MLAs in a resort. This has come in the way of the BJP’s plan to herd the second batch of rebel Congress MLAs to quit early next week, sources said. However, the BJP still wants to go ahead with the plan of getting the first four of the rebel MLAs to resign, it is learnt.
Interestingly, barring a handful of leaders close to party State unit president B.S. Yeddyurappa, none in the BJP has clarity on the party’s plans. In fact, keeping them in the dark has already made some of the party old-timers jittery as they believe that this is only an indication of things to come if the BJP opens its doors for lateral entry of Congress rebels.