Lack of majority forced Yeddyurappa to quit: BJP

Bengaluru :  The BJP on Saturday admitted that its Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned as his government did not have the numbers for simple majority to win the trust vote in a hung Assembly.

“As we did not have the numbers (112) required to win the trust vote, our party leaders in Bengaluru and Delhi decided that Yeddyurappa should resign,” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Vamanachrya told IANS here.

BJP leaders and Union Ministers Prakash Javadekar, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ananth Kumar were regularly in touch with the party’s leadership in Delhi throughout the Assembly proceedings, he said.

“By 3 p.m., we have communicated to our leaders that we lost the battle and a decision was taken that Yeddyurappa has to resign. His resignation speech was prepared,” added Vamanacharya.

He also denied allegations of the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) that the BJP had indulged in horse-trading.

“These allegations are being levelled against us since the election results came on Tuesday. If we would have gone for horse-trading, getting seven legislators on board was not a huge task. But we did not try and we stuck to honest politics like we always do,” Vamanacharya said.

Yeddyurappa, 75, who announced his resignation on the floor of the House before the trust vote, drove to Raj Bhavan and submitted his resignation to Governor Vajubhai R. Vala.

The BJP won 104 seats in the May 12 assembly election held in 222 of the state’s 224 constituencies, falling eight short of a simple majority.

Published on: May 19, 2018 at 18:58 IST

IANS