Shobha Karandlaje, MP, said on Monday that the disqualified MLAs were free to join the political party of their choice.
Speaking to presspersons here, Ms. Karandlaje said that the disqualified MLAs could decide which political party they wanted to contest from in the forthcoming bypolls. The purported video clip with Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa’s comments on disqualified MLAs, which was being reported, and which the Congress was planning to submit to the courts, would not prove to be an ‘audio bomb’.
After these disqualified MLAs had resigned, the Governor had invited the BJP to form the government in the State because it had the numbers. Even in the purported clip, the CM had mentioned this. “Mr. Yediyurappa has said that the BJP came to power because these MLAs had resigned. There is nothing wrong in what he said,” she said.
Ms. Karandlaje said the BJP had taken a stand not to speak to any of the MLAs till they had resigned from their parties. There had been no change in this. Once they resigned, they were not members of any party. “It is only after they had resigned, we are trying to tell them to join our party. They may join our party and may contest as our party’s candidates or go according to their own wishes,” she said.
To a query, she said that former CM Siddaramaiah was always playing dirty political games. After leaving the JD(S) and joining the Congress, he blackmailed the latter’s High Command to make him CM. Later, he pressurised the High Command and got appointed as Leader of the Opposition. It was a known fact that Mr. Siddaramaiah had not allowed the Congress-JD(S) government under H.D. Kumaraswamy to function properly and was responsible for its downfall, Ms. Karandlaje said.
