Bengaluru: Facing a drought of MLAs and believing that the ones in government are ready to switch sides, BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa has started the tour of drought affected districts in Karnataka.
Of the four Congress MLAs who were absent at last week’s crucial Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting, three have sent a letter to former chief minister Siddaramaiah reaffirming their faith in the party. Interestingly, it includes “rebel” leader and former minister Ramesh Jharkiholi.
The Congress MLAs who were kept at a resort near Bengaluru were allowed to go home after an MLA G Ganesh assaulted a fellow MLA Anand Singh on Saturday night. The BJP MLAs who were holed up at a seven star resort near Gurgaon in Haryana also returned home after the “failure” of “operation Kamala 3.0”.
However, the ruling JDS-Congress combine is not relaxed. They still fear that the BJP is up to something and may restart its “operation Kamala” beginning next week. The “operation Kamala” was abruptly halted after the death of most revered Shivakumara Swami of Siddaganga Mutt on Monday.
Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy dropped a bombshell on Friday, claiming that the BJP had offered huge “gift” to a Congress MLA on Thursday night asking him to defect to the BJP.
Speaking to media, he said “The BJP is desperate for power. They want to topple my government before next month. They are offering unimaginable amount of money for defection. Where do they get the money from? Yeddyurappa must answer. Our Congress MLA has flatly refused their offer. We are united and no amount of pressure and money will make our MLAs defect to their side.”
The state Congress leadership is also keeping a close watch on some of its MLAs who are allegedly in touch with the BJP. The CLP leader Siddaramaiah and KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao have asked senior leaders to make sure that no MLA goes with the BJP.
Speaking to News18, Siddaramaiah said, “PM Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah are directly behind it. They know that they are losing the Lok Sabha elections in the next three months. If we contest with JDS, we will win more than 20 Lok Sabha seats from Karnataka. Because of that the BJP is offering up to Rs 100 crore per MLA. I have never seen a more shameless political party in my 45 years of political life.”
Reacting to this, Yeddyurappa said that the BJP was not into “operation Kamala”. Speaking to News18, he said, “The Congress and the JDS have serious differences. The government will collapse on its own. We are not doing anything.”
The JDS-Congress coordination committee, which met in Bengaluru on Thursday, exuded the confidence that all attempts of the BJP to topple the government would be foiled at any cost.
The state intelligence department is reportedly keeping a close watch on about half a dozen Congress MLAs who are allegedly still being lured by the BJP.
Fed up of these developments and resort politics, BS Gowda, a social activist, has written a letter to Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar requesting him to give chief minister HD Kumaraswamy and Leader of the Opposition BS Yeddyurappa’s chambers in the Vidhana Soudha to him on rent.
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