'Bombay Days': This Defector MLA Readies to Expose BSY with Behind-the-Scene Details of 2019 'Op Kamala'

Bengaluru: Karnataka chief minister BS Yediyurappa will perhaps have sleeplessness nights for the next two months.

Senior leader and former MLA H Vishwanath, who quit as JDS president to defect to BJP to make Yediyurappa chief minister, last year has dropped a bombshell claiming he will write a book on "operation Kamala" with all details about the deals that happened behind the scenes.

Speaking to News18 over telephone from Mysore, Vishwanath said that the title of the book would be "Bombay Days" and he wanted the people to know how Yediyurappa came to power with the support of 17 Congress and JDS MLAs by toppling the JDS-Congress coalition government in July last year.

He said that his defection clinched the deal for Yediyurappa, which had eluded him for 14 months.

"Only after a top leader like me defected, others got the confidence. They followed me to BJP camp. We took a flight to Mumbai. We made Yediyurappa CM. He is in power because of our sacrifice. I want to explain and expose everything and everyone," he said.

Vishwanath, who was disqualified for the mass defection, fought and lost the bypolls in the end of 2019. Later, Yediyurappa promised him an MLC post. But, his name was rejected by the party high command in Delhi.

Most of the other MLAs who detected to BJP with him won the bypolls and have been subsequently made ministers. MTB Nagaraj, who also lost the bypolls along with Vishwanath has been made an MLC, last week.

It has angered Vishwanath, who feels that he has been shortchanged by Yediyurappa. He is planning to finish the writing in the next two months.

"I want to bring out the book in Kannada, Hindi and English, simultaneously. The people of Karnataka and India have every right to know what happened without their knowledge. We are answerable to them," Vishwanath told News18.

His "Bombay Days" project is being seen as a pressure building exercise, which may force the BJP to accommodate him somewhere to save itself from a huge embarrassment. Yediyurappa is yet to react to Vishwanath's book writing threat.

Former chief minister and leader of the opposition Siddaramaiah has alleged that Yediyurappa has paid Rs 30 crore to each MLA, including Vishwanath for the defection. Vishwanath was a senior Congress leader before he joined the JDS in 2018.