Bengaluru: After Karnataka’s sole BSP minister, N Mahesh resigned from his post earlier this week, reports have come in that Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has kept his resignation pending. It is learnt that the CM wants to try and convince BSP National President Mayawati to allow Mahesh to remain in the cabinet before sending the resignation along with his recommendation to the Governor.
According to sources, the CM is keen on avoiding confusion regarding Mahesh’s resignation from the cabinet.
“Yesterday HDK sent the party’s state president H Vishwanath to Hyderabad to hold negotiations with Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu. Vishwanath has been instructed to ask Naidu to convince BSP supremo Mayawati to let Mahesh remain in the cabinet,” said sources.
“It will be communicated to Mayawati that Mahesh was inducted into the cabinet on the JD(S) quota,” said a JD(S) leader, adding that Mahesh was the Dalit face of the party, whose resignation would send out the wrong signal.
“The JD(S) doesn’t want to lose the SC/ST votes at this crucial juncture,” the leader informed.
The JD(S) and BSP parties had entered into an agreement before the state Assembly polls in May, following which Mahesh, the only BSP MLA, was given a cabinet berth.
