Even as Chief Minister of Karnataka H D Kumaraswamy submitted his resignation on Monday, Governor Rameshwar Thakur recommended dissolution of the House.
Kumaraswamy met with the governor at around 7.30 pm at Raj Bhavan on Monday and handed over his resignation.
In this letter, Kumaraswamy mentioned that they were ready to support the Bharatiya Janata Party. The governor apparently was unhappy with the turn of events and felt that it would be best to dissolve the House.
The BJP and the Janata Dal-Secular had reached an understanding earlier on Monday in which both parties had agreed to share power in the state.
It had been decided that power will be handed over as had been promised to the BJP.
Prior to submitting the resignation, the JD-S and the BJP had decided to parade their legislators before the governor to show their strength.
However, H D Deve Gowda had told Kumaraswamy to put the ball in the governor's court.
Even at the meeting of the JD-S legislature party, Kumaraswamy had said that the party should hand over power to the BJP.
Although some MLAs were opposed to the idea, they came to the conclusion that it would be best to hand over power.
Howeverk, there was a dispute regarding the deputy chief minister candidate. Initially, it was decided that Kumaraswamy would be the deputy CM, but later it was decided to make Transport Minister Cheluvarayaswamy as the Deputy CM.
What weighed on the mind of the governor?
The governor was upset at the manner in which the political parties had done a u-turn in the past few days.
The governor thought that it would be best to dissolve the House as no party could give a stable government at the moment.
The BJP had first sought dismissal of the government and then the Congress said that it was not ready to support any party in the formation of the government.
Another factor that weighed heavily on the mind of the governor was that all three major political parties have enjoyed power in the state and more importantly the party with the lowest number of seats had enjoyed power twice.
The Congress and the JD-S had formed the government first before the latter withdrew support.
Then the JD-S aligned with the BJP and formed the government.
The BJP is the largest single party in the state. The Congress is second and the JD-S third.