After taking oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka, today is an extremely crucial day for HD Kumaraswamy. With a desire to end the political drama which unfolded after the results of the assembly elections, today Karnataka CM will face the floor test. The BJP emerged as the single largest party after the assembly elections and staked claim to form the government. However, after high voltage political drama, BJP CM BS Yeddyurappa resigned before the floor test. The BJP was eight seats short from the majority mark. It didn’t have the numbers to prove the majority on the floor of the house. JD(S), despite winning only 37 seats, received unconditional support from the power-hungry Congress which was reduced to 78 seats. They also staked their claim to form the government. The Congress, despite winning more than double the seats compared to JD(S), offered the CM chair to HD Kumaraswamy just to keep the BJP out of power. Along with three other MLAs, they claimed to have strength of 117 MLAs which is more than the required majority. Today, HD Kumaraswamy at the Karnataka Vidhan Soudha has to prove the majority anyhow if he wants this ‘marriage of convenience’ to continue. It would be interesting to see whether the Congress-JD(S) alliance which is celebrating its victory will be able to prove the majority or not. Future of Congress-JD(S) alliance will be decided today.
HD Kumaraswamy joined the alliance on the condition that he will be the full term CM and will serve for full 5 years. But it looks like that the Congress has some other intentions. HD Kumaraswamy could end up only as a temporary CM. In a twist of events, Deputy Chief Minister of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government, G. Parmeshwara of the Congress party, when asked about whether Kumaraswamy will continue as the chief minister for a full five-year term, said that the party had not taken any decision yet to support H D Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister for the full five-year term. He stated, “The issue is yet to be discussed and finalised. Our immediate aim is to pass the floor test, allocate portfolios and provide good administration. The modalities, including sharing the CM post, are yet to be worked out.”
This is in complete contrast to what HD Kumaraswamy said in the press briefing that there will be no rotational CMs. Huge cracks in the foundation of the house have started appearing even before the completion of the house. It looks like history is going to repeat itself again. The Congress is intended to do the same with HD Kumaraswamy what it did to his father HD Deve Gowda. The Congress may usurp the throne and HD Kumaraswamy might go down in history as the opportunist who ended up as a loser.
Earlier also G. Parmeshwara has expressed his unhappiness with the alliance and has said that the alliance with JD(S) is not good for the long term but also conceded that they had no other options. Earlier, when the Congress strongman DK Shivakumar was asked about whether the Congress-JD(S) government would successfully run a government for five years, he said, “Time will answer. I don’t want to answer it right now. We have various issues, options before us, I can’t tell right now.”
Ahead of the today’s floor test, the BJP fielded its fifth term MLA, a very senior leader S Suresh Kumar, for the post of the speaker whose election will precede the trust vote. Congress pitched its sixth time MLA Ramesh Kumar against BJP’s Suresh Kumar for the post of speaker.
Clearly, all is not well with the Congress-JD(S) alliance. Local leadership of the Congress is not at all happy with the orders imposed on them from 24-Akbar Road but still they are following it.