Ravikiran G.

The BJP has yet again begun its efforts to dislodge the HD Kumaraswamy government in Karnataka by taking advantage of internal rivalries in the Congress party there. The Janata Dal Secular leaders were very tense as they were afraid of nearly 20 Congress MLAs joining the opposition BJP ranks in order to oust Kumaraswamy anytime now. CM Kumaraswamy himself expressed his disappointment and strongly criticised the BJP for continuing its efforts to destabilise his government. He made no secret of his apprehensions at a public meeting at Hasan now. This time, Congress leader and Minister Ramesh Jharkiholi and his brother Sateesh Jharkiholi are leading the revolt in which plans were already drawn to shift 20 Congress MLAs to Maharashtra where BJP is in power and it will give shelter. In this year’s assembly election, Congress won 78 MLA seats and JDS won 37 seats. But BJP emerged as the single largest party by winning 104 seats which was nine seats short of the total 113 majority required to form the government.

As there was no consensus CM candidate in Congress, they chose to make their alliance partner Kumaraswamy Chief Minister. Ever since, coalition crisis and alliance partners’ greed haunted his government during cabinet expansions, nominated posts and so on. Congress Coordination Committee Chairman Siddaramaiah was stated to have begun damage control exercise amid talk of the 20 MLAs likely to be taken in Indian Air Force aircraft to Maharashtra. BJP is trying all tricks up its sleeve to destabilise the frail JDS-Congress at every given opportunity. It used its power at the Centre to get ED raids conducted on the property of Minister DK Sivakumar sometime ago. The incident created tensions between the cadres of JDS and BJP in Bangalore. Politics of advantage-taking are unstoppable in this era of weak coalition governments in the states.