Just when the Bharatiya Janata Party thought everything was smooth in the formation of the government in Karnataka, a development rocked the party with four legislators from the Janata Dal-Secular, including H D Revanna decided to withdraw support to the saffron party.
Cracks in the JD-S were evident when H D Revanna, who is the son of JD-S chief H D Deve Gowda did not go to Rashtrapathi Bhavan where both the JD-S and BJP MLAs were paraded before President Prathibha Patil. Sources told rediff.com that Revanna was unhappy with the formation of the government with the BJP and preferred a truck with the Congress instead. It is also being stated that Revanna had tried to persuade Kumaraswamy several times against supporting the BJP.
Although this move by Revanna will cause no hiccups to the formation of the JD-S-BJP government, there is bound to be problems within the JD(S).
Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy who was clearly disturbed with this development met with his father Deve Gowda and sought his help in convincing his brother Revanna against drifting away from the government.
It will be interesting to see what Revanna does now. He had done something very similar 21 months back when the JD-S and the BJP had formed the government for the first time. Revanna however joined the coalition government in the capacity of the PWD minister at a later stage.
The JD-S says that this move by Revanna will be a set back to the image of the party.
Although he does not have the numbers to prevent the formation of the government, he could be an irritant in the functioning of the party. JD-S official spokesperson, Y S V Datta said that it was not a serious development. He said that there would be no rift within the party due to this development.
Meanwhile the BJP are tight lipped about the development and say that they are confident of forming the government. Several BJP MLAs were unavailable in Bangalore as most of them had left for their respective constituencies to celebrate Diwali.