One more round of political slugfest took place between the leaders of the BJP and the Congress on Friday following BJP State president B.S. Yeddyurappa’s prediction that anything could happen to the coalition government after the counting of votes on May 23, as “20 Congress MLAs are seriously dissatisfied”.
He questioned the stability of the coalition government while remarking that these MLAs were expected to make “any decision any time” on their political future.
He told reporters in Hubballi that there was no need for the BJP to make efforts to woo MLAs from the ruling combine. There are already serious differences between the coalition partners because of a lack of co-ordination, he said.
Expressing confidence that the BJP would win both the Assembly segments where bypolls are to be held, he said this would further increase its tally in the Assembly from 104 to 106, placing it in a better position to capture power.
However, these claims drew severe criticism from top leaders of the Congress. Ridiculing Mr. Yeddyurappa for predicting the downfall of the coalition government yet again, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asked, “From where will Yeddyurappa get 20 MLAs to destabilise the government?” He added, “There are dissatisfied MLAs even in the BJP, but we will not try to buy them.”
Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundu Rao said, “Yeddyurappa’s only dream is to become Chief Minister. In the last 10 months, he has been setting deadline after deadline. But we all know what happened to them.”