HD Kumaraswamy, the Janata Dal (Secular)'s legislative party leader in the Karnataka assembly, claims the Bharatiya Janata Party offered some of his lawmakers cabinet posts and Rs 100 crore to defect.

The BJP has been approaching "several" MLAs since Tuesday evening, he told reporters in Bengaluru.

In the interregnum occasioned by Saturday's hung mandate, both the JD (S) (supported by the Congress), and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP which emerged as the single largest party have made competing claims to power.

The BJP's legislative party leader, BS Yeddyurappa, said Governor Vajubhai Vala told him he'd take an "appropriate" decision "as early as possible". Like Kumaraswamy, Yeddyurappa is a former Karnataka chief minister.

The JD(S) and the Congress have at least 116 lawmakers, more than enough to push them past the proverbial post in an assembly with 224 elected seats. The BJP won 104 seats while two were won by independents. Those Independents support Congress JDS post poll alliance.

Kumaraswamy said it was a sign of the BJP's "frustration" that it was "openly" saying it wouldn't allow his post-poll alliance to come to power.

He said the coalition had a "clear majority". "Without the numbers, how can they [BJP] form the government?" he asked.

Earlier on Tuesday, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said many legislators were unhappy with the Congress- JD(S) alliance. "Things will happen in their natural course," he said, adding his party was following democratic processes and traditions.

BJP’s Basavaraj Bommai, a former minister and the son of ex-chief minister SR Bommai, said his party was not “approaching any individual” but stressed that “politics is an art of possibility”, according to ANI.