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Karnataka : BJP gets its first Government in the South |
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A Janata Dal (Secular)-BJP coalition government took office in Karnataka on Friday, Feb. 3, the first time, the saffron party has been in power in any state in the South. JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy was sworn in as Chief Minister while B.S. Yediyurappa of the BJP took office as Deputy Chief Minister. This ended the 15-day long political uncertainty in the state which began with Kumaraswamy’s faction of the JD(S) breaking away from the Congress-JD(S) coalition headed by Dharam Singh.
The coalition partners have agreed to share power for the remaining 40 months of the tenure of the State Assembly on the Jammu and Kashmir model. They will hold the office of Chief Minister by rotation for 20 months each.
BJP president Rajnath Singh and another senior party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu who played a key role in the formation of the new Government were present at the swearing in ceremony. Outgoing Chief Minister Dharam Singh was the lone Congress leader present.
Conspicuous by his absence was former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, father of the new Chief Minister. Hours before the swearing in ceremony, Kumaraswamy went to Deve Gowda’s residence to seek his blessings, but the former Prime Minister was unmoved and refrained from holding any discussion. Deve Gowda said later that his son tried to seek “blessings” when he was on his way to the airport. “I told him that I cannot compromise on my principles and he should not force me in the matter.”
Immediately after the swearing in of his Government, Kumaraswamy said that JD(S)-BJP coalition will shortly come out with a Common Minimum Programme. He said several of the pro-people programmes of the previous coalition government will be continued. The Chief Minister said transparency and drive against corruption would be the focus of the Government.
Reacting to the formation of the new Government, the Congress has said that the JDS should drop the epithet “Secular” from its name, now that it has joined forces with the BJP.
Blaming the collapse of the secular coalition on the JD-S and H.D. Deve Gowda’s self-confessed inability to keep his flock together, AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said it was a “cruel joke and a farce” that the former Prime Minister’s party should continue with its suffix when it should be putting BJP - perhaps in the parenthesis.
“The Congress and the JD(S) coalition was formed to keep out the communal forces, but was sabotaged by those who believe in party hopping, defection and power politics,” he said. According to him, a Government formed on the “quicksands of opportunism” cannot promise or deliver stability.
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