Govt will fall after poll results, hopes BJP

BJP, which hopes to gain considerably from the internal tension in the JD(S)-Congress coalition, is expecting that the alliance will collapse after the Lok Sabha election results are out.

A senior BJP functionary said that with Congress pushing its key face in the state, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, to the background for months after H D Kumaraswamy as chief minister, a section of that party is hugely unhappy.

The argument of Congress behind extending support to JD(S), which had got much lesser number of seats than it had, was that the alliance would help checkmate BJP.

Expecting to win around 22 seats in Karnataka in the just-held Lok Sabha elections, against 17 in the 2014 polls, the saffron party is waiting for the results to renew attempts to form the government.

“We will wait for the BJP-led NDA government to come back to power at the Centre. Soon after, we expect the collapse of the JD(S)-Congress coalition government,” said a senior party leader.

Once results of the Lok Sabha exams are out on May 23, the fighting among the coalition partners will increase, he said. Citing Home Minister M B Patil’s latest statement that the Congress leaders wanted to see Siddaramaiah as chief minister again, the BJP leader said, “this is a clear indication of Congress leaders’ frustration against Kumaraswamy.”

He said they would not try to topple the government, but it would collapse on its own. In the event of collapse, the BJP would form the government and Yeddyurappa would be the chief minister, he said.

Rao expressed confidence that the saffron party would be able to contain its dissidents, due to the Modi wave.