Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah accuses BJP of offering Rs 50 cr to 50 MLAs to destabilise state govt

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday alleged that the BJP offered Rs 50 crore to 50 Congress MLAs in order to remove the Congress government in the state. He added that none of the MLAs agreed to accept the bribe.

Congress has 135 MLAs in the 224-seat assembly. This is the highest number of seats and vote share for a single party in the state since 1989. It came to power in May 2023 after BJP managed to secure 66 seats and JD(S) got only 19.

Lead up to the Karnataka election in 2023

In the 2018 elections to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the most seats, 104, but the Congress and JD(S) formed a coalition government with 120 seats.


In July 2019, the coalition government of Congress and JD(S) collapsed due to resignations by several members of Congress and JD(S) in the assembly. Subsequently, Bharatiya Janata Party formed the state government, with B S Yediyurappa becoming Chief Minister.

On 26 July 2021, Yediyurappa resigned from Chief Minister's post and Basavaraj Bommai was sworn in as the new Chief Minister on 28 July 2021.