Karnataka crisis: Siddaramaiah blames Modi, Amit Shah as fresh tremors jolt Cong-JDS govt

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday blamed BJP president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the defection of two Congress MLAs, Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi. He said that the saffron party has been trying to topple the Congress-JD(S) coalition government but wont succeed. Amit Shah is directly involved in this, Prime Minister also. They are offering power and money. They want to pull down this (Congress-JDS) government but will not succeed. No threat to Karnataka government. The two MLAs will not join BJP, Siddaramaiah said. His statement comes a day after two Congress legislators Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi resigned from the state Assembly. Explaining the reasons behind his move, Singh said that he was leaving because some of his demands with regard to his constituency were not met. He mentioned two primary reasons that prompted him to resign: no action on his demand for formation of Vijayanagar as a district and sale of 3,667 acres of land to JSW Steel. However, the Congress believes that the BJP is luring its legislators to leave the grand old party. In the last assembly polls, the Congress and JD(S) came together to form the government as both the parties fell short of a majority. The Congress has 80 MLAs and JD(s) 37 in 224-member House. The BJP, on the other hand, is the largest party with 104 members, nine less than what was required to form the government. The Congress may have formed the government with Kumaraswamy-led JD(S) but the leaders from both the parties have been finding it difficult to govern the state. Karnataka CM Kumaraswamy himself has admitted that there were serious differences with the Congress leaders in the state and it was becoming difficult for him to run the state.