By IANS
Bangalore/New Delhi : A jubilant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expects a call to form its first government in Karnataka in the next two days following the union cabinet’s decision Thursday to revoke president’s rule.
The decision, which will give BJP its first chief minister in the south, was taken after Governor Rameshwar Thakur submitted his final report to the home ministry on the BJP and the Janata Dal-Secular combine’s demand that it be invited to form the government.
“The ministry of home affairs proposed to the cabinet that president’s rule in Karnataka be revoked on the basis of the report of the governor,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters in New Delhi after the cabinet meeting.
The cabinet has decided to recommend the same to President Pratibha Patil and will advise the governor to invite former deputy chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to form the government, he said.
The BJP and the JD-S combine, which broke up last month only to come together again, summoned their legislators who had gone to their constituencies to celebrate Diwali as news came in of the union cabinet’s decision.
There were joyous scenes at the BJP office in Bangalore after the cabinet decided to end president’s rule, imposed on the state on Oct 9 following the collapse of the JD-S/BJP coalition.
“We expect the invitation (from the governor) in two or three days,” said BJP spokesperson S. Suresh Kumar.
However, the reaction to the move was distinctly muted in the JD-S camp, as the party is riven with dissension over going back to the BJP.
It was former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy’s decision not to make way for Yeddyurappa to succeed him after 20 months as was agreed to that signalled the end of the JD-S led government.
His father, JD-S president H.D. Deve Gowda, who has placed stiff conditions for the stability of the proposed government, has declined to react to the revocation of president’s rule.
And the main opposition Congress, which has been demanding dissolution of the assembly, labelled it an unholy alliance.
“We stand firm in our opposition. This is an unholy alliance and cannot provide a clean and stable government,” state unit president Mallikharjun Kharge told reporters.
The coalition’s chief ministerial nominee Yeddyurappa and Kumaraswamy made themselves scarce and their aides said the two leaders were busy with Diwali celebrations.
BJP had pulled out of the alliance on Oct 5 and Kumaraswamy quit on Oct 8.
Over the next three weeks, the two parties indulged in name-calling. But realpolitik prevailed and on Oct 27 the JD-S somersaulted and extended support to Yeddyurappa forming a government.
The two parties met governor Thakur the same day and staked claim to form a government.
When Thakur did not respond even after a week, the two parties took 125 legislators, 80 from the BJP and the rest from the JD-S, to New Delhi to meet the president to prove their majority in the 225-member house.
Kumaraswamy’s elder brother H.D. Revanna, who was PWD and energy minister in the government that fell, had strongly criticised the move of BJP and JD-S to take the supporting legislators to Patil.
“It is shameful to go falling at the feet of people for the sake of power,” he had said.
While Kumaraswamy is trying hard to win him over, Revanna has announced that he will not join the ministry if the coalition is invited to form the government.