Bengaluru: Karnataka coalition government is reeling under crisis as 12 of its MLAs submitted their resignations on Saturady. Adding fuel to this, several media reports said the chartered plane on which the 10 dissident MLAs flew from here to Mumbai belongs to a firm associated with BJP Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
According to media reports, Chandrasekhar is the founder and chairman of Jupiter Capital Private Limited. A PTI report said the company officials clarified that they were running a business and whoever wanted to use the plane could do so.
12 MLAs (9 Congress and 3 JDS) submitted their resignations to the Speaker on Saturday. Following this, the Chief Minister went into huddle with the coalition leaders.
A cabinet reshuffle may also be considered by asking some loyalists of both parties to resign from the Ministry and make way for disgruntled MLA. The party leaders also tried to reach out to the dissenting MLAs and pacify them. The Congress’ high command has reportedly questioned state unit leaders about how they had allowed such a large number of resignations to happen.
Meanwhile, Congress leaders, including former chief minister and CLP chief Siddaramaiah, former Union minister Mallikarjun Kharge and Karnataka Water Resource Minister D K Shivakumar, accused the BJP was behind the current political crisis.
PTI quoted Congress spokesperson K E Radhakrishna as saying, “It is obvious that their (BJP’s) hand is very much behind (the attempt to topple the government). They cannot fool people. Central leaders of the BJP are involved in this. Their role is as clear as the sun.” He further noted that rebel JD(S) MLA A H Vishwanath went to Delhi and met BJP leaders and the conspiracy was planned a week earlier.