Two Karnataka Congress MLAs, Ramesh Jarkiholi and Sudhakar K on Sunday, 26 May, apparently met state BJP leader R Ashok, reported news agency ANI.
The development comes amid speculations that the Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka is in danger of being toppled after BJP’s spectacular victory in the Lok Sabha elections.
However, the Congress MLAs and the BJP leader, whom they reportedly met, denied any political significance of the meeting, which took place at veteran BJP leader SM Krishna’s residence.
Jarkiholi, Congress’ Gokak MLA said that they had come to congratulate Krishna. "It was not a political meeting. We wanted to wish SM Krishna Ji after BJP won 25 seats in Karnataka. It was a courtesy call," news agency ANI quoted him, as saying.
On the other hand, BJP’s R Ashok said that he came to Krishna’s residence to discuss ‘party matters’. “I came to meet SM Krishna Ji to discuss party matters. I have no friendship with Congress leaders Ramesh Jarkiholi and Dr Sudhakar,” he told news agency ANI.
Jarkiholi and Sudhakar – Backstory
According to reports, both the MLAs are likely to shift camps to the BJP, while at least on one occasion, Sudhakar has expressed his dissatisfaction over the Congress-JD(S) alliance.
A day before the counting of votes, Sudhakar termed the alliance an ‘unholy’ one. A report by The News Minute (TNM) quoted him as saying, “The historical blunder of aligning with JD(S) has costed us dearly and you will see that in the results that will come out on 23 May.”
Earlier, following the exit polls he sparked controversy by tweeting that EVM manipulation has nothing to do with the exit poll results. His tweet had come at a time when opposition parties were demanding that votes polled on EVMs be tallied with the VVPAT count before the counting starts, and not after the last round.
TNM also quoted sources to report that Jarkiholi has been tasked by the BJP leaders to bring in over 20 Congress and JD(S) MLAs and topple the coalition government.
Jarkiholi had earlier openly expressed his intention of joining the saffron party.
Moreover, in the Gokak assembly segment, which comes under the Belgaum Lok Sabha constituency, BJP gained over 60,000 votes, in the recently concluded general elections compared to the 2018 assembly elections.
Similarly, in Chikkaballapur, Sudhakar’s assembly constituency, BJP’s votes shot up by over 35,000.
(With inputs from ANI and The News Minute)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)