Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy used the debate on confidence motion moved by him as an opportunity to insist that he was “not clinging to power” and narrated political ordeals he had experienced since he headed the coalition government in 2006 and during the Opposition BJP’s recent attempts to topple the present coalition government.
Mr. Kumaraswamy said that 14 months of the JD (S)-Congress coalition was now reaching its final stage. He reiterated that he was not interested in official positions and it was the Congress that had urged him to become Chief Minister after the fractured mandate in 2018. “Power is not permanent. Power comes and goes,” Mr. Kumaraswamy said. “The BJP may have won 303 seats today. But I would like to remind the BJP that the late Rajiv Gandhi had won a mandate with more than 400 seats. But what happened later? Let them not assume power is permanent,” he said.
Recalling episodes of political turbulence during the 2008-13 BJP government, he said it was the BJP that started a new chapter in the State’s history by getting MLAs to resign to circumvent the anti-defection law. Suggesting how it only led to instability in the BJP government, he said: “I will also see how stable a government you would give after all this exercise,” he told BJP members. Alleging that the BJP had been making attempts to topple the coalition government from day one, the Chief Minister said: “You are enjoying now, but it’s temporary. You will also face it in future.”