Karnataka government will fall in 2-3 days: Maharashtra BJP

Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy (C) surrounded by supporters while leaving a meeting in New Delhi. File Pic/AFP

While Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy insists that Congress MLAs who the BJP has whisked off to Mumbai in a bid to topple his government were still in constant touch with him, BJP leaders in Maharashtra claim the Karnataka Janata Dal-Congress coalition government will fall in the next two-three days.

Claims and counter claims are being made by the BJP and the Congress, but no verified information was available about the confinement of the three Congress MLAs at a Powai hotel where leaders from both parties are said to have booked rooms. To make matters worse for Kumaraswamy on Tuesday, two MLAs from alliance partners (non-Congress) withdrew support to his government.

Kumaraswamy, however, said in Bengaluru that he had been speaking to the MLAs constantly and there was no threat to his government. If a studied statement by BJP's water conservation and OBC welfare minister Ram Shinde is to be believed, then 'Operation Lotus' seems to be a reality.

Activity in the BJP camp has gained momentum. The BJP has flown its Karnataka flock to a Delhi neighbourhood and sources in the party said a few more Congress legislators would be taken away from the ruling coalition in the coming days.

Shinde said Kumaraswamy would not be the Karnataka CM for long. "Whatever is happening or said to be happening now, I must say that the BJP would form a government very soon in Karnataka because the JD-Congress alliance is unholy. The people of Karnataka had given BJP a mandate to run the government," said Shinde without revealing much about the BJP-sponsored stay of the Congress legislators.

Did cellphones expose plan?
A local BJP leader said the people who had brought the Congress legislators to Mumbai had made a big mistake by allowing them to use their phones. "The first thing the people in-charge of the operations should have done was to throw their phones. These are basics that one should avoid in today's world," a leader said.

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