Though in an upbeat mood after the Supreme Court verdict, the BJP is not keen to take any chances. In an effort to shore up numbers to defeat Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s trust vote, the party brought back Independent MLAs H Nagesh and R Shankar to Bengaluru.

Though the rebel MLAs had decided to stay back in Mumbai and wanted to return only on Friday, BJP leaders tracking the Congress’ petition pressing for disqualification of Shankar, flew them to Bengaluru,
and corralled them at Ramada resort to ensure that troubleshooter DK Shivakumar or CLP leader Siddaramaiah do not approach them.

The BJP, which held a core committee meeting attended by senior leaders, wants to maintain silence and not create a ruckus that would become a tool for Speaker Ramesh Kumar to take an unfavourable decision, or suspend them when the House votes.

As the Congress and JDS plans to drag the motion of confidence vote with lengthy speeches to buy itself a window of two days, that could allow the leaders to operate behind the scenes to win over a few rebels.

BJP members knocked on the Speaker’s door, with an appeal to directly go for a confidence vote, as the opposition would not get into deliberations.

They also held talks with legal experts as Siddaramaiah has moved a disqualification petition against Shankar, and hope to counter the Speaker’s move if he wants to hear from the counsel appearing for
the rebels, on the disqualification petition.

It is also learnt that central BJP office-bearers and leaders will arrive in Bengaluru to take stock of the post trust vote developments, and not give scope for any other constitutional crisis or gameplan of the Congress-JDS.