BJP says it's 'Betrayal', withdraws Support to JD(S) in Karnataka
PTI
New Delhi, Oct 6: Ending the fortnight-long power tussle in Karnataka following the JD(S)' refusal to hand over chief ministership to it, the BJP on Saturday withdrew support to the 20-month-old H D Kumaraswamy government in the state.
The decision to pull out of the regime was taken by the BJP parliamentary board which met here a day after JD(S) Chief H D Deve Gowda made it clear that power transfer will not take place in the state.
Since the meeting between BJP president Rajnath Singh and Gowda did not “lead to any positive results, the parliamentary board has decided to withdraw support from the Karnataka government,” senior leader and party in-charge of Karnataka, Yashwant Sinha told reporters here.
“The issue is not just about transfer of power, it is betrayal,” he said.
“The JD(S) decision is an insult to the 2004 mandate which was in favour of the BJP and we want fresh elections in Karnataka,” Sinha said after the 45-minute meeting attended by central leaders like L K Advani, Rajnath Singh, Yashwant Singh and Sushma Swaraj.
Sinha said the party was against forming a government by engineering defection and would go for mid-term polls. Karnataka BJP legislature party leader B S Yeduriyappa and party state president Sadananda Gowda were also present at the meeting.
Yediyurappa and Gowda had been instructed to meet the state governor at the earliest and hand over the letter of withdrawal of support and apprise him of the circumstances that compelled the party to take the decision, Sinha said.
He lashed out at the JD(S) and its president Deve Gowda for “not honouring” the power sharing agreement reached 20 months ago between the two sides and dubbed it as “betrayal”.
“We had publicly announced the terms of agreement and there was no uncertainty about the transfer of power. It was a transparent agreement. The issue is that a party, JD(S) headed by a former Prime Minister, is not ready to honour the agreement,” he said.
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