“Is This How PM Cleans Up Society?” asks HD Kumaraswamy as MLA’s pull out

BENGALURU: After the two independent lawmakers pullout from the Janata Dal Secular-Congress coalition, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy said he was “totally 100 per cent confident” that his government is stable and will complete five years.

Mr Kumaraswamy, while speaking to the NDTV said, “There is no threat to my government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has to answer how the BJP and its friends are trying to destabilize the government. Modi criticises corruption. He says he wants to clean up the society. This is how he cleans up the society? By poaching MLAs from the Congress-JDS? And keeping his MLAs in a resort.”

He further added that “I expected them to leave anytime. I am not surprised at all and didn’t even try to stop them. I have always taken 118 as the real strength of the coalition (113 is the majority mark in the 224-member assembly).

Two Independent MLA’s on Tuesday withdrew their support from the ruling Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka and submitted their letter to the Governor announcing the withdrawal of their support.

Independent MLAs, H Nagesh and R Shankar, submitted a letter to the Governor on Tuesday and announced the withdrawal of their support from the Kumaraswamy-led government.

H Nagesh, one of the MLAs who withdrew support said “My support to coalition government was to provide a good and stable government which utterly failed. There is no understanding among the coalition partners. So, I decided to go with BJP to install a stable government and see that the government performs better than the coalition.”

Another MLA R Shankar stated that “Today is Makar Sankranti. On this day we want a change in the government. The government should be efficient, so I am withdrawing my support (to the Karnataka government) today.”

The ruling coalition has 118 lawmakers in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, With the latest withdrawal of two MLAs, the number has come down to 116, which is just above the halfway mark of 113.