By IANS
Bangalore : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) Monday paraded 126 supporting legislators in front of Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur to convince him to invite the combine to form a new ministry, but a rebel JD-S leader and the Congress tried to block their moves.
Hours before the legislators’ parade, senior JD-S leader and former home minister M.P. Prakash met Thakur and urged him to reject their claim as his party’s support to the BJP was “illegal and invalid”.
Prakash told Thakur that the JD-S legislature party had not met to endorse the support decision, which was taken unilaterally by former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and his father and JD-S president H.D. Deve Gowda.
Prakash informed the governor that he was confident of mustering support from the JD-S legislators to form a government with the backing of the Congress, which has 65 members in the 225-member house.
The BJP has 79 members and has received support from 44 of the 51 JD-S legislators.
Just before Prakash met Thakur, state BJP chief D.V. Sadananda Gowda and his JD-S counterpart Merajuddin Patel submitted to the governor individual letters from 126 legislators, 80 of the BJP and 46 of the JD-S, pledging support to a BJP-led government.
Karnataka is under the president’s rule and the assembly has been kept in suspended animation since Oct 9, a day after Kumaraswamy was forced to resign following withdrawal of support by the BJP over power transfer row.
Prakash is angry that Kumaraswamy and Deve Gowda took the decision to support BJP even though he was talking with Congress leaders in New Delhi for a tie-up to form an alternative government.
Kumaraswamy and other JD-S leaders met Prakash Monday but failed to win him over.
The Congress is supporting Prakash’s efforts. He also has the backing of several independent legislators and smaller parties, who together have 25 members in the assembly.
Deve Gowda hurriedly sent a letter to Thakur Monday requesting him to ignore his earlier letter, demanding immediate dissolution of the assembly, sent soon after the Kumaraswamy ministry fell.
Deve Gowda was forced to send the fresh letter as the Congress and Prakash urged Thakur to go by the earlier missive and not take cognisance of the support letter given by Kumaraswamy Saturday.
In a dramatic climb-down on Saturday, Kumaraswamy, who refused to make way for BJP’s B.S. Yeddyurappa to succeed him only three weeks back, offered the JD-S support to him to stake claim to form the government.
A Congress delegation led by state party president Mallikarjun Kharge met Governor Thakur Sunday evening and urged him not accept the BJP-JD-S claim as the two had been bitterly fighting each other during the last three weeks.
Thakur was also told of the Congress support to Prakash’s efforts.
Congress leaders plan to meet Thakur again Tuesday to mount pressure on him to reject the BJP-JD-S claim and give a chance to Prakash and the Congress party to form an alternative government or recommend dissolution of the assembly.
The assembly still has 20 months’ terms left and a majority of the legislators, particularly many JD-S members, is against early polls.
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 Kumaraswamy ministry fell, Thakur announced that he will hold ‘Janata Darshan’ thrice a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.