But, with former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa still breathing down Gowda’s neck, it’s the post election developments which will determine the stability of the BJP government.
The BJP with 119 members, has a clear majority in the legislative Assembly of 225 members, who will take part in the election process. Sadananda Gowda is pitted against Anand Gaddadevaramath of the Congress. The Assembly Speaker and the nominated member too have voting rights. The voting will be held at Vidhana Soudha from 9 am to 4 pm and the counting of votes will be taken up after 5 pm on Thursday.
No whip from JD(S)
The JD(S), which has 26 MLAs and has remained silent on supporting the Congress nominee, has not issued any whip to its members. Sources in the JD(S) said that its legislators may stay away from the election process itself.
A section of the MLAs may even vote for Gowda in case he faces trouble due to groupism in the BJP. But the BJP may not require such support as Yeddyurappa and his supporters have promised to go by the direction of the party’s central leadership to ensure Gowda’s victory.
Yeddyurappa, after initial hesitation, is now backing Gowda. He attended the BJP legislature party meeting on Wednesday and appealed all members to vote for Gowda. But he is expected to make his next political move after Sankranti - January 15, according to sources close to him.
In another shot in the arm for the party, five independents - Goolihatti Shekar, P M Narendraswamy, Shivaraj Thangadagi, Venkataramanappa and D Sudhakar on Wednesday decided to vote for Gowda. They met the chief minister and agreed to be with him.
The BJP has issued a two-line whip to all its members to be present and vote for Gowda.
The Congress had planned to embarrass Gowda by exploiting the rift within the BJP, with the support of the JD(S). But its strategy went awry as the BJP leaders joined ranks at least temporarily and the JD(S) refused to play ball. The Congress legislature party, at its meeting on Wednesday, issued a whip to its members to vote for the official nominee, but it dreads cross-voting by a section of its own MLAs. It is to be seen to whom B Sriramulu, Independent MLA, would extend his support. Even Sriramulu’s close associates - K V Nagendra, Somashekar Reddy and Suresh Babu are likely to vote for Gowda. The party had recently revoked the suspension of three legislators.
Sadananda Gowda is now a Lok Sabha MP from Udupi-Chikmagalur constituency. As per norms, after his election as MLC, he will have 15 days to decide on either retaining his MP seat or taking up the legislative council membership.
The BJP MLAs began their day on Wednesday by assembling at Legislators’ Home. After breakfast, they left for Golden Palms Spa and Resort, on the outskirts of Bangalore in two buses.
As many as 60 rooms had been booked at the resort. Two legislature party meetings were held through the day before the MLAs returned back to Bangalore at 7:30 pm. Excise Minister M P Renukacharya who complained of severe headache took a break from the meetings and underwent an MRI scan at a hospital in Bangalore.
