By IANS,
Bangalore : Results of Friday’s poll to 23 legislative council seats will be out Monday, impacting equations within the dissidence-prone ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the fledgling Congress-Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) alliance.
On the eve of vote counting, Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa held meetings with his senior ministers and state Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leaders on steps to contain second round of dissidence against him in three months.
The BJP’s first chief minister in south India is under pressure from a group of party legislators again to drop several ministers and take them in the cabinet instead. The group is also seeking several posts of heads of government-run boards and corporations.
Yeddyurappa survived a rebellion by financially powerful mining barons and ministers, the Reddy brothers of iron-ore rich district of Bellary, about 400 km from here, in November. The younger Reddy, G. Janardhana is tourism minister and the elder G. Karunakara is revenue minister.
He is hoping that a good show in the council polls would strengthen his hands to quell the dissidence, which the JD-S and a section in state Congress want to use to bring down the Yeddyruappa ministry and form an alternative government.
The dissidents, led by legislator M.P. Renukacharya, met Panchayat Raj Minister Jagadish Shettar, who was projected by the Reddy brothers as alternative to Yeddyurappa during the Oct-Nov revolt.
Both Yeddyurappa and Renukacharya maintained there was no dissidence in the party and all the meetings were in connection of the legislature session that resumes Monday after a week’s break for the council polls.
The BJP does not have a majority in the 75-member council, the upper house of the legislature. It is hoping to win at least 15 seats when results come out Monday. The party and the Congress have bagged one seat each unopposed.
Monday’s outcome will also decide whether the Congress-JD-S alliance will continue. The two came together to fight the council polls as they realized that neither was strong to take on the BJP on their own.
The three major political parties face another prestigious election in two months – for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanaraga Palike (Greater Bangalore City Corporation).
The tenuous alliance will end if the two together fail to win majority of the 23 council seats on Monday.
With that their hope of exploiting dissidence in BJP to form an alternative government would also be dashed.
The results should be out by noon as only members of the local bodies – gram, taluk, zilla panchyats, town municipal councils, city corporations – and legislators and parliament members formed the electoral college.
Of the council’s 75 members, 25 each are elected by assembly and local bodies, seven each by graduates and teachers. The remaining 11 are nominated. Polls to the council are held biennially as one-third members retire every two years under statutory provisions.
On Friday, of the over 93,000 members of local bodies, legislators and parliament members, around 97 percent voted.