Bengaluru: The BJP’s threat to contest all three Legislative Council seats fizzled out on Monday, the last day for filing of nominations for the October 4 poll, with the party developing cold feet at the last minute. According to party sources , BJP state president, B.S. Yeddyurappa decided against contesting the Council poll as he feared it would lose.
Its withdrawal has now paved the way for the unanimous election of the three candidates of the coalition partners in the state government. While the Congress has fielded Mr Nazeer Ahmed and Mr M C Venugopal, the JD(S) has fielded Mr Ramesh Gowda. The three seats have fallen vacant due to the resignations of deputy Chief Minister, Dr G Parameshwar, and BJP leaders, K S Eshwarappa and V Somanna from the Upper House after their election to the Legislative Assembly in the May assembly poll.
The BJP, which was ready to field Malakaiah Guttedar, C.P. Yogeshwar and B.J. Puttaswamy, announced it was backing out before the 3 pm deadline for filing of nominations, taking many of its senior leaders and the would-be candidates by surprise. The saffron party’s win was dependant on at least eight of the coalition MLAs cross-voting and going by sources, it was banking on some of the legislators it was in touch with to bring down the Kumaraswamy government, voting in its favour. But it decided against it as the Speaker, Ramesh Kumar could make it mandatory for the MLAs to follow their party whip and force them to show their votes to the election agent, they add.
Also, had the cross voting MLAs resigned afterwards, their letters of resignation could have been kept pending if the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) lodged a complaint with the Speaker against the cross voting, till the disposal of their petition. The Bharatiya Janata Party was also reportedly concerned that the Speaker could order the MLAs’ disqualification under the Anti-defection Act, which would make them ineligible to contest any election for the next six years.
“If the party failed to get the required numbers to elect its candidates to the Upper House, it would be an embarrassment for it,” explain party sources. While Dr Parameshwar and Mr Eshwarappa’s tenure was set to end by June 2020, Mr Somanna’s term was to expire in June 2022.
