Karnataka CM HD Kumarswamy (File Photo)

WASHINGTON: Karnataka chief minister HD Kumarswamy is asserting that his government is stable and will complete its full term even as the BJP is chipping away at the JD(S)-Congress combine with the resignation of two rebel Congress Party MLAs in a blow to his already shaky administration.

Maintaining that the two MLAs Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi had resigned on account of local intra-party and developmental issues, Kumaraswamy, currently on a visit to the US, said the BJP was trying to create panic among JD(S)-Congress legislators that the government would fall.

“They will not succeed…they cannot put together the numbers. If my government was shaky would I have come on a visit to the US?” Kumaraswamy said in a phone interview from New Jersey where he took part in the Kalabhairaveshwara temple foundation laying ceremony.

The Karnataka chief minister is coming to the Washington DC area on Tuesday to take part in a business seminar aimed at attracting investors to the state. The seminar is headlined “Compete with China” which apparently is a Karnataka government initiative to bring manufacturing jobs to the state.

Kumaraswamy has been heading a coalition government in Karnataka in which his rump JD(S) with only 37 MLAs and 18 per cent votes has formed a government with support from Congress Party’s 80 MLAs in a 224-member Assembly. The BJP, which got 104 seats in the 2018 state elections and fell short of a 113 majority by nine, has been snapping at the heels of the JD(S)-Congress combine since then.

The BJPs efforts to dislodge the JD(S)-Congress government appears to have increased after it won 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the Lok Sabha elections in May, with the argument that the current dispensation has lost the mandate of the people.

But Kumaraswamy said he intends to complete his term and has no plans to recommend dissolution of the Assembly and go in for fresh elections.

He also denied that was in the US for medical reasons, saying he was in good health as could be attested by his strenuous schedule that involved village home stays to remain close to the ground. He said he is on schedule to return to Bengaluru on July 5/6.

