Bangalore: Karnataka Speaker KG Bopaiah will on Tuesday morning meet BS Yeddyurappa loyalists after two Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs filed a petition on Monday seeking disqualification of the loyalists for being involved in alleged anti-party activities. The BJP MLAs claimed to have documentary evidence to prove that the 12 MLAs loyal to Yeddyurappa attended the December 9 rally of the Karnataka Janata Party in Haveri.
After resigning from the BJP, Yeddyurappa launched his own party the KJP at a convention at Haveri on December 9, 2012. He has said that his party will fight the 2013 Karnataka Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, BJP President Rajnath Singh on Monday morning met Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar and said he was confident that there was no threat to the BJP government in the state. Rajnath's assurance came after his hour-long meeting with Shetttar in the national capital. "There is no threat to our Karnataka government. Our state government in Karnataka will complete its tenure. This was a courtesy call," Rajnath said.
Shettar also looked confident and said no MLA had submitted his resignation to him yet. "There is no crisis in Karnataka, nothing to worry. No MLA has technically resigned till now, so we have to wait," he said.
Shettar's government has been battling a political crisis after 13 MLAs announced to quit their assembly membership. The Chief Minister, however, said that his meeting with Rajnath was a "courtesy call" after he became the BJP chief and he, as the leader of the state legislative party, had come to take the new leader's "wishes" for Karnataka.
Sources said that both the leaders discussed the future of the first BJP government in south India. Asked whether he has any suggestion to the Chief Minister, Rajnath said, there was no need to given any suggestion to Shettar. "He is very intelligent, very sharp and very confident Chief Minister," the BJP chief said.
Shettar, who reached Delhi by a special flight on Sunday evening from Hubli, left for Bangalore immediately after the meeting. Rajnath had last week asked Shettar not to compromise on the BJP's principles even if it threatens the survival of the government in the southern state.
Thirteen MLAs loyal to KJP chief Yeddyurappa had last Wednesday met Speaker KG Bopaiah to submit their resignation from Assembly membership. As Bopaiah was not present, they had later submitted copies of their resignation letters to Governor HR Bhardwaj.
In the 225-member Karnataka Assembly, the BJP has a strength of 117 excluding the Speaker and requires 113 for a simple majority. The Congress has 71 members and the JDS 26.
There are seven Independents and two vacancies. One member is nominated. Bhardwaj had stated on January 26 that the Jagadish Shettar government still enjoyed a majority and as leader of the BJP legislature party, it was left left to him to take action on the issue of resignation of the 13 MLAs.
(With Additional Inputs From PTI)
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