The beleaguered Chief Minister of Karnataka B.S. Yeddyurappa said here on Tuesday that after he received the invitation for a second trust vote from Governor H.R. Bhardwaj, he gave up the earlier idea of parading his flock before President Pratibha Patil.
Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party core committee meetings on the Karnataka crisis here were attended by central party leaders L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar.
Besides Mr. Yeddyurappa, State president K.S. Eswarappa and Law Minister Suresh Kumar were present.
In the second meeting, the BJP's flock of Karnataka MLAs, who had descended on the capital in large numbers, were also present.
No authority: Jaitley
PTI, ANI report:
Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley raised objections to the Governor's letter questioning the “verdict” of the Assembly during the trust vote and questioned his authority to do so.
Mr. Jaitley was talking to reporters after one round of the BJP's core group meeting.
“In his letter, the Governor uses the word farcical...the Governor has completely lost his authority and cannot be the custodian of the Constitution. He should be recalled immediately by the Centre,” Mr. Jaitley said. He criticised the Governor for ‘allowing' the use of the Raj Bhavan for political purposes.
In Ahmedabad, Chief Minister Narendra Modi warned the Congress-led UPA that blatant “misuse” of Constitutional offices would backfire, referring to the Karnataka crisis.
“The Congress has been blatantly misusing the constitutional offices. Their policy will backfire. People will also give them a fitting reply, as they have done here [in the civic polls],” he said.
“The Congress has become desperate to destabilise the governments of Opposition parties, and that is the reason Yeddyurappa is being targeted.
“They tried it here also in the form of the CBI. I had told them during the campaigning that by using the CBI you can get people arrested, but you cannot win elections,” Mr. Modi said.
In Bangalore, the Opposition JD(S) and the Congress slammed as “unconstitutional” the Governor's decision to give another chance to the BJP government to prove its majority and demanded postponing of the Assembly session called for the purpose on October 14.
Both the Opposition parties, which went into parleys after Mr. Yeddyurappa accepted the Governor's offer and face the trust vote for the second time in four days, termed it “unconstitutional and illegal.”
“It is unheard of in the history of the country. There is no need for allowing another vote of confidence, for which there is no scope under the Constitution,” JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy told reporters after calling on Mr. Bhardwaj.
