Karnataka crisis peaks, 2 more Congress MLAS quit
POLITICAL TUSSLE: More party legislators are likely to resign before the 10day monsoon session of the state legislature
NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: Karnataka’s political slug fest intensified on Wednesday, with the rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAS approaching the Supreme Court against the Assembly Speaker’s decision not to accept their resignations and the opposition BJP urging Governor Vajubhai Vala to direct a floor test by the H D Kumaraswamy government.
Meanwhile, two more Karnataka Congress legislators, MTB Nagaraj and D Sudhakar, submitted their resignations on Wednesday, taking to 13 the number of party MLAS who have quit since July 1.
If the resignations are accepted, the party’s strength is the Assembly will reduce from 79 to 66, including the speaker.
According to sources, 3-4 more party legislators are likely to resign before the 10-day monsoon session of the state legislature beginnning on Friday here. The Congress, desperate to save its government in Karnataka, raised storm in parliament and protested on the roads of Bengaluru, where senior party leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and KC Venugopal were detained along with several party workers while taking out a protest march.
High drama was also witnessed in Mumbai where some Congress leaders, including DK Shivakumar, were detained by police after they tried to enter a hotel to meet the rebel legislators, who hooted them away.
The government’s woes increased when a lone legislator of a regional party KPJP and an independent also resigned and withdrew their support to the ruling coalition, which has a slender majority in the Assembly.
After resignation by KPJP MLA and independent legislator, the combined strength of the ruling allies will be reduced from 117 — 115 of the Congress-jd-s and one of BSP — to less than 113, the halfway mark for a simple majority. If all the resignations are accepted, the strength of the Assembly will go down to 209 and the new halfway mark will be 105.
However, Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar has refused to accept the resignations of the MLAS, saying eight of them were not in the prescribed format and five others needed to explain why their action did not fall under the purview of Anti-defection law.
The 10 MLAS, who have resigned, approached the Supreme Court against the speaker’s decision and sought an urgent hearing on the matter.
In their plea filed through senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, the rebel legislators alleged the speaker was not performing his constitutional duty and deliberately delaying the acceptance of their resignations from the Assembly.
A bench, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, assured Rohatgi that the plea would be heard, but at some later date. The apex court is most likely to hear the matter on Thursday. In Bengaluru, a delegation of Karnataka’s BJP met the Governor and urged him to direct the Assembly speaker to conduct floor test, saying the Congress-jd(s) coalition government has ‘lost’ majority.