As soon as the trends of the Lok Sabha election results started trickling in on Thursday, the Bharatiya Janata Party Karnataka leadership is learnt to have been flooded with feelers from MLAs of the governing Janata Dal (Secular)–Congress coalition who are willing to shift loyalties in a bid to help the saffron party form an alternative government in the State.
Despite emerging as the single-largest party by securing 104 seats in the 225-member Legislative Assembly (including a nominated member) in the 2018 elections, the BJP had to sit in the Opposition as the JD(S) and the Congress came together to form the government.
Consistent efforts
Though BJP State president B.S. Yeddyurappa has been making consistent efforts to woo the governing combine MLAs to topple the coalition government, he had not succeeded as he could not muster the support of adequate number of MLAs.
Now, however, more MLAs are reportedly showing interest in supporting the BJP though the party needs just around 10 MLAs from the rival camp to quit to trigger political instability in the State.
But, the BJP central leadership is learnt to have decided that its State unit should consider long-term interests and stability while trying to form an alternative government. It would mean that the party leadership wants its State unit to explore options beyond that of wooing certain number of MLAs from the rival camp as that would not help remove political instability. “There is no ambiguity that Mr. Yeddyurappa will be the Chief Minister in the event of the party forming the government,” said a source.
The BJP leadership is now watching for the next political moves by the governing combine which has been pushed to the brink. According to highly placed sources, the BJP State unit is unlikely to have a shot at power at least for the next one week as the focus would be on formation of the government at the Centre.
Meanwhile, Mr. Yeddyurappa said, “We will wait for two days to see what the coalition partners decide.”
He suggested that Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy should resign by maintaining that the coalition government had lost the moral right to continue. “The vote share of the BJP is expected to be around 54% which clearly indicates what people are wishing for,” he said.