BJP, JD(S) staged coup to oust Shankarmurthy, alleges Congress
- Congress MLC V S Ugrappa accused that the no-confidence motion was moved on the behest of certain BJP and JD(S) leaders
- Congress faced an embarrassing defeat in the floor test on Thursday, despite CM Siddaramaiah himself seeking support of one Independent MLCs and a few JD(S) leaders
- Congress has also accused that JD(S) did a U turn after having agreed to support the ruling party’s motion
FollowThe BJP may have retained the Chair in the Legislative Council. But were BJP leaders too hand in glove with the Congress in the latter’s efforts towards the removal of D H Shankarmuthy from the Chairman post?
According to Congress MLC V S Ugrappa that seems to be the case. Before the Congress lost the floor test in the Upper House on Thursday, Ugrappa, pointing at the BJP MLCs, accused them of instigating the Congress to move the no-confidence motion against Shankarmurthy.
Not just the BJP, even certain JD(S) MLCs too were part of the “coup”, he alleged. Ugrappa said that BJP MLCs K B Shanappa and B J Puttaswamy, and JD(S) MLCs Basavaraj Horatti and T A Sharavana had approached the Congress seeking its support for Shankarmurthy’s ouster. However, these MLCs had “backstabbed” the Congress in the last minute, he decried.
It’s an open secret that MLCs cutting across party lines wanted Shankarmurthy to step down. The BJP leader has been holding the post for the last seven years.Though the Congress did not have the required numbers, it initiated the process, in the hope of garnering external support. As a ruling party, it had seemed overly confident of bagging the Chairman post.
So what went wrong with its strategies that it had to suffer such a blow? According to sources, the Congress was pinning hopes on the JD(S) abstaining from the voting process. But when the JD(S) demanded that its MLC Basavaraj Horatti be made the Chairman, the Congress then shifted its focus on the Independents - it thought that it could win over all five Independents.
Three Independent MLCs - Vivek Rao, Byrathi Suresh and M D Lakshminaraya were already in the Congress camp. However, MLCs D U Mallikarjun and Basanagouda Patil Yatnal were elected to the House with the support of the JD(S) and BJP members. Despite being aware of their allegiance to the BJP and JD(S), the Congress made all out efforts win over Yatnal and Mallikarjun.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah himself is learnt to have spoken to Yatnal a day before the floor test. Though the Congress tried to reach out to Mallikarjun, the MLC did not make himself available to them.According to sources, Mallikarjun was in Ceylon the last few days, and was unavailable for parleys. In fact, the BJP which was keen on conducting the floor test on June 14 itself, had to postpone it by a day, so that Mallikarjun could come back to Bengaluru in time for voting.
When contacted, Mallikarjun said that he was very much in Bengaluru and had not gone abroad. “I will be voting in favour of the BJP,” he told Asianet Newsable, before the floor test. Mallikarjun, a multi-crore realtor is said to be close associates with both JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy and BJP leader R Ashoka.
Both Yatnal and Mallikarjun are Lingayats, which worked in favour of the BJP. While BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa is said to have assured Yatnal a ticket in the 2018 Assembly polls, Kumaraswamy is said to have coaxed Mallikarjun to support the BJP-JD(S) combine.
Also Read: Shankarmurthy aces floor test; Cong falls flat on its face
Siddaramaiah is also learnt to have reached out to JD(S) MLCs Sandesh Nagaraj and Puttanna, asking them to abstain from voting. The MLCs however did not indulge the Chief Minister as it would have required them to flout the whip. Once a legislator flouts the whip issued by the party, he/she will lose the seat.
A Congress leader said that though JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda was in favour of supporting the Congress, his son Kumaraswamy wanted to go with the BJP. “The BJP may have assured Kumaraswamy protection from being apprehended in the Jantakal mining case. The SIT is conducting the probe into the matter only on the instance of the Supreme Court. Kumaraswamy must be hoping that the Centre might intervene and help him avoiding an arrest,” added the leader. The Lokayukta Special Court has rejected Kumaraswamy’s anticipatory bail plea. His lawyers have now moved the High Court seeking a bail.
Only after it realised that it had failed to shore up support from all quarters, did the Congress make a desperate attempt at luring the JD(S) in the last minute. Hours before the floor test, it announced that it would agree to JD(S)’s terms and allow Horatti occupy the Chair. However, it was too late by then.
