Did Siddu save BJP blushes?

It was Opposition leader S. Siddaramaiah who came to the rescue of the Yeddyurappa government in the Assembly on Wednesday morning by demanding a discussion on drought rather than on the coal scam as demanded by the JD(S), Congress leaders admitted to Deccan Chronicle on Thursday. Was it by design or inadvertent? They could not say.
Although the Congress and JD(S) do not have a formal understanding, the two parties have managed to effect a measure of informal floor coordination against the ruling BJP. But on Wednesday, none of that was visible. The JD(S) wanted to turn on the heat on the coal scam, but Congress thirsted for a debate on the drought.
The House accepted Mr Siddaramaiah’s demand. What was worse for the JD(S) was that the Congress legislators walked out of the House after the debate, saying that the government reply was unsatisfactory.
In the bargain, they left the JD(S) at the mercy of the ruling party legislators. The latter struck at the right moment, angrily raising the issue of the uncharitable remarks that former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy had made about Chief Minister Yeddyurappa. The commotion ensured that no more business could be transacted during the rest of the day.
Congress members, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had been facing a difficult choice for quite some time over whether to support the JD(S) or not as it raised dust over one alleged scam after another.
“We felt that JD(S) leader H.D. Revanna has been hogging the attention, which Congress as the principal Opposition party should have got, by raising scandal after scandal in the last two sessions. He has been taking a lion’s share of the time allotted to the Opposition”, they said, “We could not have made an attempt to cut him to size on the floor of the House, because that would have sent a wrong signal to people that we were trying to cover up the scams that he was unearthing.”
On Wednesday, though, they decided to do exactly that just as Mr Revanna was about to raise the coal scam again. “Mr Siddaramaiah and Opposition leader in the Council, V.S. Ugrappa, have toured the drought-hit districts and got first-hand reports. It was important for us to raise the issue. So, we did that,” the legislators said. They admitted, however, that their strategy might have given the BJP an advantage while giving people the impression that Mr Siddaramaiah had saved the government from embarrassment.