BENGALURU: Cross-voting by 11 National Democratic Aalliance (NDA) MLAs during the June 18 MLC polls continues to haunt the alliance partners — BJP and Janata Dal (Secular).
The BJP leadership has been maintaining that three of their legislators cross-voted and one vote was invalid. A fact-finding panel headed by BJP MLC CT Ravi mentioned the same in his report to the party high command, say sources.
Before that the Karnataka BJP president BY Vijayendra and Leader of Opposition in Assembly R Ashoka met BJP national president Nitin Nabin in New Delhi and gave their explanations.
Party insiders consider that one MLA each from Bengaluru, Gadag, Bidar and Koppal districts might have cross-voted.
The BJP high command has asked the state leadership to keep a close watch on these MLAs as they would join Congress ahead of 2028 Assembly polls. It also want other leaders to be groomed to be pitched against them in the respective assembly constituencies.
Meanwhile, the JDS leadership says four of its MLAs might have cross-voted and the remaining seven could have been from BJP.
Union Minister for Steel and Heavy Industries HD Kumaraswamy has spoken to Nitin Nabin in this regard, say JDS sources.
Kumaraswamy, however, has said that the MLC poll debacle is a closed chapter indicating that both the parties should move on to face the forthcoming local bodies polls including for the five city corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA).
He is keen on holding the coordination committee meeting within two weeks to iron out the differences.
“Kumaraswamy is not bothered about the JDS MLAs who have cross-voted and will not initiate any action against them,” a JDS leader told The New Indian Express adding that the BJP-JDS alliance will remain intact for assembly polls in 2028 and the Lok Sabha polls in 2029.
Meanwhile, political analysts, however, say that the -voting might be a ploy by those who wanted to strain the relationship between the NDA alliance partners.
