Yeddyurappa may induct three rebels as ministers

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) might have managed to get a majority in the Karnataka Assembly with the 11 rebel MLAs returning to the party fold, but the crisis for Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa is far from over.

The BJP now enjoys the support of 121 members in the state Assembly, up from 110 before the Supreme Court verdict quashing the disqualification of the members by the Speaker.

Yeddyurappa has kept up to his name of being a master in the art of persuasion within the BJP and has ensured that the government complete five years in office. He has decided to expand his Cabinet by inducting at least three of the 11 rebels as ministers.

“We will start the assembly session from the first week of June and then we will have a cabinet expansion. But first we must have an assembly session and we have demanded the governor to call for a session of the house,” Yeddyurappa told reporters in New Delhi.

The Congress leadership today dropped ample hints that the Karnataka Governor may have overreached himself in his 'desire to return to Delhi", but said the party would do everything "tastefully".

The present crisis in Karnataka started after the Supreme Court quashed the disqualification of 16 MLAs, including 11 from the BJP, from the Karnataka assembly. The Speaker had disqualified the MLAs in October last year on charges of acting against the party. Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj has recommended the Union government to impose President’s rule in the state claiming that the state government does not enjoy majority in the Assembly.

Meanwhile, the BJP leadership met President Pratibha Patil to demand immediate recall of the Governor and also to parade all the 121 Karnataka MLAs in front of her and make a point that the actions of Bhardwaj were unconstitutional.

Senior BJP leaders, along with their NDA alliance partners, had met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday to ask him not to accept the recommendations of Bhardwaj and to recall him from Karnataka.

“We have support of 122 MLAs including the Karnataka Speaker. The government is in majority and I don’t understand why these games are being played against a democratically elected government. The actions of H R Bhardwaj are against the constitution and undemocratic,” said Nitin Gadkari, the BJP president.

Today the BJP held demonstrations in Bangalore in support of the Chief Minister while the Congress organised a road show demanding his resignation.