BENGALURU: While the Congress and the JDS were scrambling on Monday to deal with the possible damage from the resignations of Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi, a strange sense of calm existed in the opposite BJP camp as the party chose to wait it out, instead of acting on the opportunity to destabilise the government. 

The party has in the past said that it didn’t want to bring down the coalition government and would prefer if it just collapsed on its own. However, this does not mean that the party is not preparing should this happen. On Monday State president BS Yeddyurappa said, “We are not ascetics, if the coalition collapses we will explore options to form government.” 

Yeddyurappa spoke to the media after Congress MLA Anand Singh’s resignation was announced. “If the government collapses we are not responsible. It will collapse under its own weight. Only after the collapse of this government we can explore the constitutional provisions to form the new government. There is no question of elections, we are a strong force of 105 members and we have every right to make a claim for forming the government if the present one collapses,” he said.  

Yeddyurappa said that while he had not yet received the news of Singh’s resignation, it only enforced his view that there was large scale conflict within the Congress. “We are not bothered about the resignations, our first concern is about the people of the state and the drought,” he said. 

However, in spite of the party’s smug attitude towards Monday’s developments, there was still a lot of chatter in the party about the next move. While some were excited at the prospects of the Government falling, others had already started divvying up ministries, boards and corporations. Keeping with the party’s stance however, all of it was strictly off the record. 

Former Deputy Chief Minister R Ashoka also said that he welcomed Singh’s resignation on the issue of the JSW land deal. “The government has received kickbacks on the issue. This is the beginning of more resignations,” he said Sources, however, pointed out that the central leadership had a hand to play in the restraint being shown by the state leadership as it was keenly monitoring the situation.