M Venkaiah Naidu, former president of the Bhartiya Janata Party, who played a key role in bringing the Bharatiya Janata Party and and the Janata Dal-Secular to agree to form a government in Karnataka has accused state Governor Rameshwar Thakur of stalling the installation of a popular government in the state.
The leaders of the two parties met the governor in the afternoon and handed over the list of 125 MLA's who have agreed to lend their support to a BJP-government led by Yediurappa.
"We have also offered to parade the MLA's in case he desires. We have requested him to send his report to the Union government to convene a cabinet meeting to revoke President's rule in the state so that way is cleared for installation of new government," he said.
According to Naidu, Thakur is giving time to M P Prakash, who is leading a breakaway faction of JD-S, to try and get more MLAs to his side. "At best the governor can delay the decision for a couple of days. Otherwise we have many other alternatives available to us," he said.
He refused to give the details of the 'alternatives'.
When asked to comment on his earlier statements on JD-S President Deve Gowda and his credibility, Naidu said it was no longer relevant. "Though Yashwant Sinha is in-charge of the state, everyone is pooling their energies to prevent what happened in Bihar and Jharkhand. I constulted party chief Rajnath Singh, L K Advani and Arun Jaitley. They were of the opinion that we should accept Gowda's offer and install a BJP-led government for next 19 months," he said.
He denied that his party was shying away from polls in the state. "We are ready for the elections but the Congress is not willing to go to the polls. They want to come back to power through the backdoor and we are not going to allow that to happen. We have 79 MLAs while the JD-S has 58. Forty five have already signed the letter of support," he asserted.
The Karnataka assembly has been placed under President's rule but the assembly has been kept under suspended animation.