Bengaluru, June 1: In what is seen as a second setback to B S Yeddyurappa, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has decided not to make more efforts to destabilise the Congress-JD(S) government in Karnataka. The message was passed on to Yeddyurappa on Thursday at a meeting after the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ministers. The development is seen as a major blow to Yeddyurappa's chief ministerial ambitions.

"The party leadership has issued us a diktat not to destabilise the government," Karnataka BJP chief Yeddyurappa told reporters on Friday. This is a second setback for Yeddyurappa in 48 hours from PM Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah. On Wednesday, Modi-Shah duo picked those members who are reportedly from factions opposed to Yeddyurappa for ministership. Four ministers from Karnataka were sworn in to be a part of PM Modi’s cabinet on Thursday. BJP Offered Rs 60 Crore, Ministerial Post to One ‘JDS Person’, Says MLA KM Shivalinge Gowda.

The ministers are DV Sadananda Gowda from Bengaluru North, Suresh Angadi from Belagavi and Pralhad Joshi from Dharwad. Nirmala Sitharaman, who is represented in Rajya Sabha from Karnataka, is also a part of the cabinet. While Yeddyurappa refused to speculate on possible mid-term assembly elections, he maintained that he has not abandoned his “chief ministerial ambitions completely yet", reported Times of India.

The Lingayat strongman also accused former Karnataka chief minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah of sending across four of his MLAs to the BJP in a bid to pull down Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy led government. "We know Siddaramaiah’s game plan. We won’t allow the plan to succeed at BJP’s expense," he was quoted as saying. Karnataka's Political Crisis Deepens as Congress Loyalists Demand Cabinet Berths.

A fractured verdict in the May 2018 state assembly elections threw up a hung Assembly, with the BJP winning 104, Congress 79, excluding speaker, and JD-S 37 and one each by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a regional party and an independent. The BJP fell short of 9 seats for a simple majority in the 225-member assembly.

To keep the BJP out of power, Congress and JD(S) forged a post-poll alliance to form the fledgeling coalition government on May 23, 2018. Since then, Yeddyurappa has been trying politically to pull down the state government.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 01, 2019 01:12 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).