How BJP’s strategy to ‘speak less and listen more’ paid off

BENGALURU: The BJP’s strategic gambit to “speak less and listen more” paid off in the legislative assembly on Tuesday, with six days of patience and hard work helping the party defeat CM H D Kumaraswamy’s confidence motion.

“It was not easy to be quiet, especially with members of the treasury benches attacking senior leaders of our party with all kinds of allegations. It required a lot of patience and planning,” BJP member Aravind Bellad said.

Ahead of the trust vote, the party had given five MLAs — J C Madhuswamy, Jagadish Shettar, Basavaraj Bommai, S Suresh Kumar and C T Ravi — the task of dealing with questions raised by the Speaker and members of the Congress-JD(S) coalition.


“It took us two days to convince our leader, B S Yeddyurappa, not to react to tantrums by the treasury benches during the course of the debate,” said a BJP leader.

In October 2010, when BJP was in power, 16 MLAs, including 11 from the party, were disqualified under the anti-defection law by then Speaker K G Bopaiah ahead of a crucial trust vote that Yeddyurappa moved, purportedly to change the configuration of the House and maintain status quo on its strength.

Wary of a repeat, BJP had asked its usual troublemakers to sit tight and keep their own counsel. M P Renukacharya, Aravind Limbavali, A S Patil Nadahalli and Hartal Halappa, in particular, were warned not to get carried away under any circumstance.