Not too keen or hopeful of the Congress supporting his government, Mr Kumaraswamy, who is confident that his Janata Dal (Secular) will do well whenever elections are held to the State assembly, is sure that his friends in other parties will bail him out if he indeed was required to seek a trust vote of the Assembly.

Mr Kumaraswamy is likely to appeal to the MLAs irrespective of party affiliations for their conscience vote, without, of course, taking into account the anti-defection law.

His supporters said the good relations he enjoys with legislators from the BJP and Congress may bail him out.

Future uncertain
According to them, the chief minister will have a support, to start with, of 65 MLAs including nearly 50 of his own party MLAs in addition to several Independents. He has to cross the magical figure of 113 to romp home victorious in a House of 224.

A relaxed Mr Kumaraswamy, who would be reduced to the status of a lame-duck chief minister once the BJP meets the Governor and conveys its decision to pull out from the coalition arrangement, says he is not sure of the immediate future, though.

“I don’t know what Governor Rameshwar Thakur will do. I hope he will abide by my request. He has the option to convene the session earlier than October 18 (as the chief minister has sought) or may even dissolve the House. It is all in his hands,” he told Deccan Herald.

What will happen if elections are indeed held ? “I am confident that we will do far better than in 2004 (when JD(S) secured 58 seats). Our show in North Karnataka — not a Dal stronghold — has been impeccable in the recent local elections. This will be repeated.” If the elections are really announced, Mr Kumaraswamy said it would not be a surprise if he decided to contest from a seat in North Karnataka.

Having refused to transfer power to the BJP, Mr Kumaraswamy knows he will be on the defensive but is confident he will move on and people will agree with him.

“I will tour every nook and corner of the State and tell people why we took the stand we took. I am confident that I will convince them. After a long time I have switched on my cellphone and I am getting calls from common man and most of them are not unhappy with my decision.”

According to him, though his party had taken a decision to break ties with BJP, he still wanted to talk with BJP leader B S Yediyurappa on the transfer of power.

“This morning, I sent Minister Cheluvarayaswamy to him but got the answer that I should resign first. It is not just my resigning, there are other legal issues like the support letter that I would have to give to the Governor and so many other matters. BJP just did not want to discuss these issues. I wanted to discuss with them for the last 10 days but they were not keen. Their only mantra was my resignation. If they had come to me, I am sure I would have convinced my father on transferring power. I am deeply hurt over the BJP behaviour in the last 10 days, especially since Minister Sriramulu made the murder charge against me for which the BJP did not react.”

Mr Kumaraswamy even claimed that Mr Yediyurappa wanted to break away from the BJP and join the JD(S) in 2004-05. “However, when I came to know that he had opened channels with the Congress too, I stepped back.”