Don’t want people to think Jarkiholi family was behind fall of govt.: Satish

Former Forest Minister says he will reveal reason for it at the right time time

Satish Jarkiholi, former Forest Minister, tried to brush aside allegations that the Jarkiholi family was behind the fall of the alliance government.

“We don’t want people of the state to think that the Jarkiholi family is responsible for this change. Ramesh Jarkiholi might have changed parties and Balachandra Jarkiholi may have aided it. But I don’t want the family to earn a bad name,” Mr. Satish Jarkiholi said here on Friday.

He alleged that “one specific thing” was responsible for the fall of the government and that he would reveal it at the right time.

He said that B.S. Yediyurappa’s attempt at staking claim to form the government was wrong and based on the false belief that he could command the majority in the House.

“The BJP needs 112 MLAs to form the government. They now have only 105. They are far from the majority. I don’t understand on what basis is he rushing to take the oath as Chief Minister,” he said.

Mr. Satish Jarkiholi said he welcomed the decision of Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar to disqualify three MLAs on the charge of violating provisions of the anti-defection law.

“These MLAs had engaged in anti-party activities and made their stand very clear by their conduct.”

However, he said that this had to be done long ago.

“I had asked my party senior leaders to disqualify these MLAs. But they did not listen to me. If they had been disqualified before the trust vote, our government would have been saved,” he said.

“In fact, I had intimated our leaders in advance against the threat of Operation Lotus. But our High Command did not exercise caution. In fact, we could have saved the government if we had engaged in Operation Congress. But even that was not done seriously.”

The Speaker has performed in tune with provisions of the Constitution and other laws and the BJP had no moral rights to speak against him, Mr. Satish Jarkiholi added.