JDS, BJP threaten stir if not invited by Governor

While threatening to launch a state-wide agitation in case of delay in getting an invitation to form the government...

While threatening to launch a state-wide agitation in case of delay in getting an invitation to form the government, the re-united JDS-BJP alliance in Karnataka said that it was also ready for a floor test in the Assembly.

At a joint press conference held soon after BJP’s Chief Minister aspirant B S Yediyurappa held a meeting with JDS national president H D Deve Gowda, the combine demanded that the Governor must give them a call by the end of Tuesday or face the prospects of agitations outside the Raj Bhavan and across the state.

“If the Governor fails to invite us to form the government in the next 24 hours, both the parties will launch Raj Bhavan chalo and state-wide agitations,” D V Sadananda Gowda and Merajuddin Patel, state presidents of BJP and JDS respectively, said.

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Yediyurappa, during his meeting with Deve Gowda, had sought the latter’s unequivocal support to form the government, especially in the context of Gowda’s October 24 letter to the Governor, the Prime Minister and the President, asking for dissolution of the state Assembly.

The JDS said that he had sent a letter to the Governor stating that the BJP-JDS combine now enjoys a clear majority. The JDS-BJP combine had been in power between February 3, 2006 and October 8, 2007 before the alliance fell apart following JDS’ failure to transfer power to the BJP.

On the basis of the Governor’s recommendation that no party was in a position to form a government, President’s Rule had been imposed in the state while the Assembly was kept in suspended animation.

With the current political situation in Karnataka being a first of its kind in the state, a call to the two parties to form a government is expected to take its time, legal experts said in Bangalore on Tuesday.

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Deve Gowda has accused the Congress of using its power to block the formation of the renewed BJP-JDS alliance government.

Meanwhile, former JDS leader and current Congress member Siddaramaiah, who had been blamed for attempts to break the JDS during the current period of suspended animation, reacted by saying the former prime minister was trying to blunt the opportunist tag that had been attached to him through the recent political developments.

“Even today, Gowda has no intention of forming a government with the BJP for the sake of a stable governance. He is only worried about the future of his family,” he said.