BJP to take power in Karnataka State

INDIA, Hindu nationalists will take power on Monday in southern India for the first time after a five-week political standoff that finally ended with the reconciliation of uneasy coalition partners.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be sworn into office in Karnataka state, with the Janata Dal-Secular party (JD-S) as the junior partner in a renewed coalition, party spokesmen said.

Karnataka is a state of 60 million ruled out of the city of Bangalore, India's science capital and the hub of software, biotechnology and aerospace industries that are spearheading national economic growth of nine percent a year.

"Our priority will be to focus on developmental programmes, which have come to a standstill over the past month due to the political impasse," chief minister-designate B.S. Yeddyurappa told reporters late Saturday in Bangalore.

"We are confident of completing the full term of 19 remaining months in office," he added.

Taking power in Karnataka has been a prestige issue for the BJP, the main opposition at federal level. It is influential in the north and west, but has never governed India's four southern states.

The BJP and the JD-S coalition fell apart when former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy failed to honour a 20-month-old power sharing agreement under which he was to give way to B.S. Yeddyurappa as chief minister on Oct 3.

But with lawmakers from neither party willing to face early elections, the BJP and the JD-S have renewed their alliance, helping the former achieve its dream of leading a government in southern India.

Bangalore, Monday, AFP