By NNN-PTI,
Bangalore, India : Under attack from opposition parties for launching ‘operation lotus’ to wean away Congress and JDS MLAs to make up the required numbers to gain majority in Assembly, the BJP government in Karnataka would celebrate 100 days in office of its first ministry in South today.
As the saffron party geared up for the event, JDS led by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda organised protests across the state highlighting the “failures” of the B S Yedyurappa government. The Congress, the main opposition party, for its part, has also drawn up agitation programmes from October two.
The Congress had already hit out at BJP charging that its government had failed on all fronts including law and order.
The euphoria that was built around the saffron party coming to power on its own after the May Assembly elections did not last long as the BJP launched ‘operation lotus’, to engineer defections, drawing criticism from various quarters.
The modus operandi of the operation was to attract MLAs from opposition parties, make them resign their seat and reward their defection with power and a BJP ticket to contest the bye-elections.
Though BJP failed to get 113 seats, required for simple majority in the 224-member state Assembly in the elections and won only 110 seats, it made up the numbers by roping in six independents.
With their support the BJP had a comfortable strength of 116 members as against 108 in the opposition ranks with Congress having 80 and JDS 28.