Saffron-hand? Lehar rides the Ind' wave

BENGALURU: The results of the Council elections on Friday   strongly hint at a tacit pact between the Congress and BJP  to defeat the JD(S).

Interestingly, while the Congress managed without the votes of independent and most smaller party MLAs, the BJP appears to have won their votes for its second candidate, Lehar Singh, who managed to secure 27 first preferential votes despite the party having only 14 surplus votes to give him after allotting 30 to its first candidate, V Somanna.

All nine independent MLAs and MLAs of smaller parties, who were not tapped for support by the Congress (which seems to have got  five rebel JDS MLAs to vote for its candidates instead) appear to have gone with BJP. Except for KJP MLA, B.R. Patil and BSR Congress  MLA, Rajiv (who backed  Congress), all MLAs of the BSR Congress, KJP and MES reportedly voted for Mr. Singh.

BJP state president, B.S.Yeddyurappa  is said to have monitored the elections from the chamber of leader of the opposition  in the assembly Jagadish Shettar, to make sure  things went smoothly for the party.

Sources close to  the Lingayat strongman said he  approached the nine independent MLAs, B.Nagendra, Mankal Vaidya, Haladi Srinivasa Shetty, S.N. Subbareddy, Varthur Prakash, G.Manjunath, K.S. Puttannaiah, Ashok Khney and Satish Sail for support .

He also reportedly managed to ensure the support of  MES MLAs, Sambaji Laxman Patil and Aravind Chandrakant Patil, besides BSR Congress MLAs, T.H. Suresh Babu and Thippeswamy for Mr. Singh, taking his tally of votes to 27.  One KJP MLA is said to have voted for BJP’s Somanna.