By IANS
Bangalore : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) Monday said they had received a positive response from Governor Rameshwar Thakur to their claim to form the government in Karnataka, and that they were expecting to be invited soon.
“The governor told us he will immediately apprise the central government of the developments and take all constitutional steps for installing a popular government,” state BJP chief D.V. Sadananda Gowda told reporters as his JD-S counterpart Merajuddin Patel stood by.
The two parties earlier in the day paraded 129 supporting legislators before the governor.
“It is left to the governor, and the invitation to form the government could come as early as tomorrow,” Patel said when asked when they expected to be called.
The two parties decided to bring the supporting legislators before the governor in the light of strong opposition to their claim by a section of the JD-S as well as the Congress, the second largest party in the state assembly.
Karnataka is under president’s rule and its 225-strong assembly has been kept under suspended animation since Oct 9 following the collapse of the JD-S-BJP coalition government on Oct 8 over a power transfer row.
H.D. Kumaraswamy of the JD-S was forced to quit as chief minister after the BJP pulled out of the alliance following his refusal to make way for BJP’s B.S. Yeddyurappa to take over as chief minister as agreed 20 months back.
However, on Saturday Kumaraswamy and the JD-S did a somersault and told the governor that they would support a government headed by Yeddyurappa.
Yeddyurappa was Monday elected leader at a joint meeting of the legislature parties of the BJP and the JD-S at a five-star hotel from where the legislators were ferried to the nearby Raj Bhavan in three buses.
There was chaos in front of the Raj Bhavan as hundreds of BJP and JD-S supporters gathered there, waving flags and cheering their leaders. The police had a tough time controlling the surging crowd.
The magic number for majority in the assembly, which still has 20 months’ term left, is 113 and the combine has mustered the support of 129 members.
Earlier in the day, a section of JD-S legislators led by senior leader and home minister in the Kumaraswamy ministry M.P. Prakash met Thakur to oppose the combine’s claim to from the government again, three weeks after they had fallen apart.
Prakash told the governor that the support letter given by Kumaraswamy to the BJP has no validity as a formal meeting of the JD-S legislature had not been held to take such a decision.
Prakash has been talking to the Congress to form an alternative government though he is now left with only two other JD-S legislators supporting him. The JD-S now has 51 members. It had won 58 seats in the 2004 assembly polls but one left and joined the Congress, another has been expelled and five others are under suspension.
The Congress, which has 65 members in the assembly, is backing Prakash’s efforts and is also mounting pressure on the governor to reject the renewed bid by the BJP and JD-S to form the government.
A Congress delegation led by state unit chief Mallikharjun Kharge met Thakur Sunday evening.
Meanwhile, JD-S president H.D. Deve Gowda hurriedly sent a letter to Thakur Monday requesting him to ignore his earlier letter demanding immediate dissolution of the assembly following the collapse of the ministry headed by Kumaraswamy, his son.
Deve Gowda was forced to do so as the Congress and Prakash want the governor to act on the letter and not take cognisance of Kumaraswamy’s support letter.
Besides physically presenting the legislators, the BJP and JD-S also submitted individual letters to Thakur from the legislators supporting Yeddyurappa as chief minister.
Thakur has begun consultations with legal experts on the course open to him.
His programme schedule indicates that he is unlikely to take a decision on the BJP-JD-S claim soon.
Thakur has scheduled a Janata Darshan (meeting with public) for Friday and decided Sunday that such meetings should be held by officials at the district level also.
Soon after the Kumaraswamy ministry fell, Thakur announced that he would hold ‘Janata Darshan’ thrice a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.