BJP shouts ‘betrayal’, withdraws support to JD-S

Since the meeting between BJP president Rajnath Singh and Gowda did not “lead to any positive results, the Parliamentary Board has decided to withdraw support from the Karnataka government,” said senior leader and party in-charge of Karnataka, Yashwant Sinha.

“The issue is not just about transfer of power, it is betrayal,” he said.

“The JD-S decision is an insult to the 2004 mandate, which was in favour of the BJP and we want fresh elections in Karnataka,” Sinha said after the 45-minute meeting attended by central leaders like L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Yashwant Singh and Sushma Swaraj.

Sinha said the party was against forming a government by engineering defection and would go for mid-term polls.

Karnataka BJP Legislature Party leader B S Yeduriyappa and party state president Sadananda Gowda were also present at the meeting.

Yediyurappa and Gowda had been instructed to meet the state Governor at the earliest and hand over the letter of withdrawal of support and apprise him of the circumstances that compelled the party to take the decision, Sinha said.

He lashed out at the JD-S and its president Deve Gowda for “not honouring” the power sharing agreement reached 20 months ago between the two sides and dubbed it as “betrayal”.

“We had publicly announced the terms of agreement and there was no uncertainty about the transfer of power. It was a transparent agreement. The issue is that a party, JD-S headed by a former prime minister, is not ready to honour the agreement,” he said.

“We have learnt a lesson and will have to be careful in future,” Sinha said, summing up the party’s experience with the JD-S. “It is always a learning process,” he added.

The BJP, which wanted B S Yeduriyappa as the next Chief Minister of Karnataka after the power transition, was, however, non-committal on its candidate for the post in the event of mid-term elections in the state.

“Yeduriyaapa was our chief ministerial candidate. If elections were to take place, the Parliamentary Board will take a decision in this regard at the appropriate time,” Sinha said.

The alliance between JD-S and BJP had been uneasy right from the beginning and Kumaraswamy had in the last one month given enough hints that his party would not hand over power to the saffron party despite the power-sharing accord.

Deve Gowda’s plain refusal for the same came a week after he pulled out of talks with Sinha, complaining that BJP leaders in Karnataka had filed a murder case against his Chief Minister son.