It was here that the Congress’ two ‘missing’ MLAs, Anand Singh and Pratap Gowda Patil, were reportedly holed up amid alleged attempts by the BJP to enlist their support to form the government.
Bengaluru: Room 402 of a Bengaluru four-star hotel will long be remembered as the site where a state’s political direction was sealed after one of the most bitterly contested elections of the country.
It was here that the Congress’ two ‘missing’ MLAs, Anand Singh and Pratap Gowda Patil, were reportedly holed up amid alleged attempts by the BJP to enlist their support to form the government in Karnataka.
It was a page straight out of a thriller, and included a jet, a powerful man and several phone calls to the duo to convince them to return to their original stable.
Before B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned as chief minister Saturday ahead of a floor test the BJP seemed set to lose, feverish efforts were reportedly underway in the party to cobble together a majority by wooing MLAs from the JD(S) and the Congress.
Singh and Patil were reportedly seen as pivots of the plan, amid the belief that their defection might convince other legislators to follow suit.
The plan
Intense speculation ensued as Patil and Singh went off the radar in the days before the trust vote, with several people guessing that they had shifted to the BJP. Patil and mining baron Singh are both former BJP members.
But what nobody knew was the fact that the powerful Reddy brothers of Ballari had stepped in. Gali Somashekhara Reddy, one of this election’s victor BJP candidates and the younger brother of Gali Janardhan Reddy, had flown Patil and Singh to Delhi for a special meeting with BJP national president Amit Shah Friday. An evening of intense discussions and deliberations followed before they finally landed back…
