From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Jul 29: After the see-saw battle and dramatic scenes preceding the collapse the 14-month-old H D Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JD(S) coalition regime in last week’s trust vote on the floor of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the newly appointed BJP Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, who was sworn in on Friday at Raj Bhavan, has an easy victory in the floor test by voice vote in the truncated House with both opposition Congress and JD(S) preferring not to press for a division of votes.

Given the fact that the ruling BJP had an upper hand in terms of numbers in view of its strength of 105 MLAs plus an independent against the coalition’s 100, including the Speaker’s vote, following the disqualification of 17 MLAs, including the 3 disqualified earlier and 14 on Sunday, reducing the strength of the Assembly to 207 and thereby bringing the half-way mark to 104, Yediyurappa had no problems in the House during the floor test.

Soon after the trust vote was declared won by the Yediyurapa regime, the Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar put the finance bills for seeking vote on account for appropriation of funds from the consolidated fund for a period of three months from August till the end the end of October. The demands of supplementary estimates for grants for various departments were also passed without much of a hassle.

After completing the urgent business of passing the trust vote and the approvals for the finance bills, the Speaker announced his resignation. He recalled the circumstances under which he was unanimously elected to the post and warmly thanked Congress party’s top leaders Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and K C Venugopal as well as Siddaramaiah and both Yediyurappa and Kumaraswamy for their cooperation. The Speaker warmly acknowledged the support and cooperation extended to him by the staff of the Legislature.

The victory in the trust vote proceedings went on smoothly and was completed in less than 15 minutes as former Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah, who occupied the Opposition’s leader’s seat, and the outgoing Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy speaking briefly after brief opening remarks by Yediyurappa following the formal moving of the motion seeking the confidence of the House in his government.

Yediyurappa, in his opening remarks, firmly asserted that he will work for the welfare of the people and development of the State without following any politics of vengeance. He appealed to the opposition members to extend their constructive cooperation and bring to his notice any irregularity or wrong-doings on the part of the government at any point of time.

The BJP leader, who assumed the chief minister’s post for the fourth time, said serving the people and working tirelessly for the State’s development was his priority and assured the House and the Opposition that he will ensure that the interests of the State will always be protected.

Both Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy cautioned Yediyurappa that he never received the mandate of the people on all the four occasions when he became the Chief Minister and countered his claims that administration of the State had come to a standstill under the coalition rule. They also warned that the kind of problems and challenges that the coalition government faced will be dogging him and asked the BJP leaders to be careful in their words and deeds.

Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy warmly complimented the Speaker for performing his duties in an impartial and objective manner and also taking the ``historical’’ decision on the issue of disqualification of the ‘’rebel’’ legislators of both parties.

Incidentally, while opposition Congress and JD(S) leaders cooperated with the government in passing the finance bills, Siddaramaiah took strong objection to Yediyurappa’s move of seeking vote on account for three months and also for the approval of the supplementary estimates for the entire financial year without any discussion.

However, in view of the urgency of passing the finance bills by the end of this month and the appeal by Speaker Ramesh Kumar for early conclusion of the day’s proceedings to enable him to leave for Hyderabad to reach the airport to attend the funeral ceremony of his close friend and senior Congress leader Jaipal Reddy.

Soon after the passage of the trust vote and finance bills by voice vote and the announcement of the resignation by the Speaker to his post, the House was adjourned to meet in the evening for taking up other subjects.

Before leaving for the assembly to participate in the trust vote and other financial business in the House, the Chief Minister visited the Bala Anjaneyaswamy temple near his Dollars Colony personal residence to offer a special pooja. Soon after reaching Vidhana Soudha, Yediyurappa called on the Speaker to discuss the day’s business in the House.