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Vijayendra faces pushback over temple test over cross-voting, ally JD(S) advises let bygones be bygones

LoP R Ashok, who arrives in Delhi Tuesday with BJP state chief Vijayendra for a meeting with central leadership, says making MLAs swear to God their loyalties would “set a bad precedent”.

Karnataka BJP President BY Vijayendra. (Credit: X/@BYVijayendra)

4 min readBengaluruJun 23, 2026 07:18 AM IST First published on: Jun 23, 2026 at 07:18 AM IST

The Karnataka BJP leadership is likely to face a moment of reckoning on Tuesday, with the party’s central leadership holding a meeting with state president B Y Vijayendra and Leader of Opposition R Ashoka over cross-voting by BJP MLAs in the June 18 secret ballot for seven MLC seats.

This comes after Vijayendra, who is under the scanner for the cross-voting, suggested that the 62 BJP MLAs meet in the temple town of Dharmasthala to swear on God that they were not the ones who cast their ballot for the other side. The controversial idea saw pushback from within the BJP Monday.

Although the two BJP candidates in the fray for the seven Legislative Council seats managed to get elected, with the other five seats going to the Congress, results showed that three BJP MLAs cross-voted and one cast an invalid vote, leaving BJP candidates short of the expected 30 votes each.

Read | Karnataka BJP MLAs to meet at Dharmasthala temple to identify cross-voters

While Raghu Kautilya got 29 votes, Lingaraj Patil won 27.

Cross-voting also meant that the JD(S) candidate got only 14 votes despite the party’s 18 MLAs.

While the JD(S) has decided to treat the episode as a closed chapter, Vijayendra hit a raw nerve with his temple test suggestion, in what may be a bid to assert himself given the constant questions over his leadership.

“Irrespective of who they are, the MLAs have betrayed their mother. We are believers in God. Every one (of the MLAs) should come to Dharmasthala. A legislative party meeting will be held there. The truth should come out at the temple,” Vijayendra said on Sunday.

Within the fractured BJP unit, senior MLAs like Suresh Kumar, Aravind Bellad, Union minister Pralhad Joshi, former CM D V Sadananda Gowda and LoP Ashok suggested Monday that it would be a bad precedent.

Confirming that he and Vijayendra would be going to Delhi Tuesday, Ashok said the above leaders had written or spoken to him over the issue. “They advised us not to proceed with it,” he said.

Ashok claimed that the Delhi meeting had been sought by them, and denied the central leadership was “upset”.

“A probe committee has already been constituted, and appropriate action will be taken once it submits its report,” he said, rubbishing suggestions that those who cross-voted did so in the name of development. “In my view, it is for personal development and not constituency development.”

Among the MLAs whose names have been doing the rounds as having cross-voted is a leader facing serious charges. Another BJP MLA, Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, a major rival of Vijayendra, sought to show that he was in the clear by publicly displaying his vote for a BJP candidate. A third wrote to BJP general secretary (organisation) B L Santhosh saying his name had been wrongly dragged into the issue.

JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy also weighed in on Vijayendra’s temple idea, saying: “The proposal by my BJP friends to hold a legislature party meeting at Dharmasthala is not wrong. But, in my opinion, it (cross-voting) is a closed chapter.”

Accusing the Congress government of “blackmail” and “using enticements”, Kumaraswamy said: “I would like to tell my BJP friends that there is no need for them to be anxious. I have already done an analysis of my party’s cross-voting. I summoned my 17 MLAs and they complied and met me.”

Incidentally the JD(S) leader linked the voting to a desire for development in constituencies. “What my MLAs are saying, the BJP MLAs and even Congress MLAs also say, is that there is no development happening in their constituencies. There is no fund release happening.”

Kumaraswamy claimed that Chief Minister D K Shivakumar had offered MLAs “Rs 100 crore to Rs 150 crore immediately for the development of their constituencies” if they voted for the Congress. “It is good to abandon the issue at this point and focus on getting rid of this government in 2028,” he added.

Shivakumar has brushed off these allegations. “It is a secret ballot. Who knows who voted for whom? I did not speak to or seek votes from others.”