Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Jan 16: After two independent MLAs suddenly withdrew their support to the coalition government, its partners, Congress and JD(S), began hectic efforts to see that this development does not endanger the survival of the government. The two MLAs, in letters addressed to the governor from Mumbai on Tuesday afternoon, announced that they would be supporting BJP. They are expected to meet the governor today to clarify their status as BJP supporters.

Although the government is not facing any danger now as far as numbers are concerned,   there are rumours that not less than 15 MLAs would be crossing over to BJP from the Congress anytime now, and resign from their memberships of the state assembly. As of now, the BJP has a strength of 106 in the 224 -member assembly, with the coalition government having support of 118 legislators.

Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy

As per an assessment, the number of disgruntled legislators in Congress is around eight and efforts are on to woo more legislators into the BJP, it is said. Once the strength of the government falls below the cut off line of 113, BJP might seek trust vote.

In the meanwhile, it is said that former Prime Minister, H D Deve Gowda, held discussions with Congress national president, Rahul Gandhi, and urged him to take dissident Congress legislators who are in touch with the BJP back into the party. In the meantime, Kumaraswamy, who continued to stay at his residence on Tuesday and kept on collecting information from his close ones, refused to meet anyone.

As soon as the threat of Operation Lotus started looking like real, the Congress central leaders immediately deputed state in-charge of Congress affairs, K C Venugopal, on Monday night itself. He stayed in Kumara Kripa Guest House and met various leaders and discussed about the developments. It is said that he also kept contacting legislators who are said to be in BJP net, and got assurance from them that they would continue with the Congress. But he could not contact Ramesh Jarkiholi, B Nagendra, Mahesh Kamatalli and Umesh Jadhav who are said to be staying at Mumbai. Venugopal reportedly expressed his anger at deputy chief minister, Parameshwara, and KPCC president, Dinesh Gundu Rao, for their inaction to seriously handle the issue of Operation Kamala about which early indications were available.