BS Yeddyurappa quits before floor test

After exhausting all options to shore up the numbers to achieve the magic figure of 111, Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa, in a dramatic move, resigned before a Supreme Court-ordered trust motion on the floor of the Assembly a little after 4 pm on Saturday.

Yeddyurappa and other BJP leaders who, until the morning, exuded confidence of winning, was outsmarted by the Congress-JD(Secular) combine that succeeded in keeping its flocks together while a string of sting videos, allegedly of BJP's attempts to bribe opposition legislators, clouded the social networking space over the past two days.

The 75-year-old, who took oath as CM for a third stint on Thursday, delivered an emotionally charged speech, reiterating his commitment to work for the farmer, downtrodden and backward classes, before announcing his resignation, spelling an end to the three-day-old BJP government in the state.

The Lingayat leader's resignation will pave the way for a government led by JD(S) chief HD Kumaraswamy with Congress support. The alliance has claimed the support of 117 MLAs in the 224-member House with an effective strength of 221.

In the days leading up to trust vote, Yeddyurappa and his loyalists made all the efforts to win over at least 14 Lingayat legislators from the Congress and draw some of the JD(S) legislators who were believed to be unhappy with the party's post-poll alliance with the Congress.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court's order to telecast the Assembly proceedings live meant the BJP was left with little option for a replay of 'Operation Kamala' on the floor.

'Operation Kamala' was coined in 2008, when the BJP was short of three seats to form a government under BSY, and mining baron and former minister G Janardhana Reddy worked out a strategy and cobbled the required mark of 112 MLAs.

Yeddyurappa moved the trust vote motion and began his speech by attacking the JD(S)-Congress combine, calling it ''unholy and unscrupulous,'' against the poll mandate. He said that the people of Karnataka will now be "ruled by an unholy alliance".

"I've been given a mandate of 104 seats, people have given their blessings. We were only 40 in the outgoing Assembly. But the people of the state have rejected Congress; and their support has reduced. Everyone in the state knows this," Yeddyurappa said. He noted that even though the BJP got the people's mandate, the party did not get it in full. Congress did not get it, JD(S) did not get it."

"They have made an unscrupulous post-poll alliance. The single largest party is the BJP. The invitation is always given to the single largest party and the Governor invited us as per procedure,'' he said.

Union ministers Ananth Kumar and Sadanad Gowda, accompanied by senior party leaders, including Shobha Karandlaje, and Congress big guns comprising Gulam Nabi Azad, Ashok Gehlot and Mallikarjun Kharge watched the proceedings from the visitors' gallery.

Concluding his speech, Yeddyurappa said: ''I had hoped that legislators sitting on the other side would realise the kind of development that would be possible under Modi. They agreed, but in politics it is different. We will win all 28 constituencies in 2019,'' he noted.

Yeddyurappa's resignation came after multiple allegations by Congress that he and his party members tried to buy out legislators, offering them ministerial posts and crores of rupees as rewards for switching allegiance.

Allegations were levelled by JD(S), too, for alleged misuse of central agencies to exert pressure on their legislators.

What went wrong for BJP 

• BJP’s hope that Lingayat legislators from Congress and JD(S) will step forward to help them sail through the trust vote fell flat
• The plan to repeat ‘Operation Kamala’ — persuading MLAs from rival camps to resign and contest bypolls on BJP tickets — didn’t work out
• The Congress-JD(S) combine’s efforts to guard their legislators left the BJP with no scope to reach out to them and draw support