K'taka: BJP min abstains from Cabinet meet

Bangalore, Aug 23: The hiatus between coalition partners of Karnataka government Janata Dal (Secular) and Bharatiya Janata Party became more evident today with the BJP ministers staying away from a scheduled cabinet meeting for sometime.

As soon as the cabinet meeting started around 0900 hours, all the JD(S) ministers trooped into the cabinet hall including Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. However, the meeting could not start as the BJP members led by Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa abstained from the meeting.

According to sources close to the DCM, the leaders were angry at the way in which the JD(S) was functioning in recent past, which among others included appointment of an official to the State Public Service Commission without consulting them and the Chief Minister's remarks at a function in Gulbarga district yesterday in which he said the tie-up with BJP had damaged the secular credentials of his party.

Hectic parleys were on and efforts were made to persuade the BJP leaders, who later began trickling down into the cabinet hall one hour after the scheduled start of the meeting. They went straight to the Chief Minister's chambers and waited for messages from the cabinet hall through Health and Family Welfare Minister R Ashok.

After some time Mr Yediyurappa, accompanied by senior ministers D H Shankaramurthy, K S Eshwarappa, Jagadish Shettar and Katta Subramanya Naidu entered the cabinet hall and attended the meeting.

After about half an hour, Mr Yediyurappa emerged out of the meeting hall and declined to comment on developments with the media.

Even the Chief Minister chose not to react and left for his home constituency Ramanagara to attend the launch of the new district.

The Cabinet cleared ten issues scheduled for the day besides three additional subjects.

UNI