Bangalore, Dec 29 (IANS) The Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) have joined hands in Karnataka to bid for the assembly speaker’s post, hoping to benefit from the continuing dissidence in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The two parties have fielded T.B. Jayachandra of the Congress as their candidate to take on BJP’s K.G. Bopaiah in the poll Wednesday.

Bopaiah was the deputy speaker and has been nominated to fill the vacancy caused after Jagadish Shettar quit in November to join Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa’s cabinet.

Numbers-wise BJP should win the contest easily but Congress and JD-S are hoping that ruling party legislators unhappy with Yeddyurappa may cross-vote in favour of Jayachandra.

The BJP has 117 members and support of five independents in the 225-member house, including one nominated member. The Congress has 74 members and JDS 27. One independent may go with these two parties.

Yeddyurappa, who survived the revolt by powerful Reddy brothers in October-November, is now facing another challenge from a group of legislators angry over rewarding a dissident legislator with ministership.

The legislator, M.P. Renukacharya, who had associated with the Reddy brothers, was inducted into the ministry Dec 24 in spite of stiff opposition to it by a number of partymen as he is facing a criminal case.

A group of four legislators, led by Appachu Ranjan from Kodagu district, about 260 km from Bangalore, Tuesday met Yeddyurappa and told him Renukacharya should not have been made a minister.

Ranjan told reporters they wanted Renukacharya to be dropped “in the interest of maintaining the good image of the party”.

Yeddyurappa called the four for the meeting following reports that Ranjan had the backing of a number of legislators and they may boycott Wednesday’s election of the speaker.

After the meeting, the chief minister said that all issues would be sorted out and Bopaiah would win Wednesday’s election comfortably.

Leader of the opposition in the assembly Siddaramaiah of Congress also expressed confidence that in view of the continuing dissidence in BJP, Jayachandra will be victorious.