The BJP in Karnataka appeared to be in a hurry and went ahead to form the government even without having numbers. And having formed a government and sounding confident of getting numbers, within just two days of swearing in, Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa ran away from trust vote and resigned on Saturday.

But before leaving the Karnataka assembly minutes before he was to seek trust vote, the Chief Minister with the shortest term of two days gave an emotional speech as how he wanted to serve Karantaka, its farmers and how an unholy alliance of Congress and Janata Dal (S) prevented him from doing service to the people of Karnataka.

After blaming the two parties for cheating the BJP from power by entering into an unholy post-poll alliance, the Chief Minister drove straight o Raj Bhavan to tender resignation. He had in fact, announced his resignation in the assembly itself, bringing an end to four days of hectic action, with MLAs of Congress and JD (S) being shifted from one hotel to another, from Karnataka to Hyderabad, and kept under lock and key to prevent them from being poached.

In a way, it has been the loss of the money bags of the BJP – mining baron Gali Janardhan Reddy, B Sriramulu and others that it could not wean away even a single MLA from the opposite side. The BJP’s tally of 104 fell little short of 9 MLAs for the magic number of 113 in a 224-member house. In fact, three seats would be vacant and need byelections.

The Congress leaders managed to keep their flock together even as its central leadership launched an assault on the BJP and the governor in Supreme Court which cut short the 15 days given to Yeddyurappa to prove his majority to just 24 hours and also ordered the proceedings in the house to be telecast live by all television channels.

It was after this development that the BJP seemed to have thrown in the towel and central leadership left the decision to resign to Yeddyurappa, who did so after an emotional farewell speech. At 75, he knows that this was his last chance at being the CM unless the Congress – JD (S) coalition falls under the weight of its contradictions.

Till then he will be happy to perform the duty of the leader of opposition.