Eyes on Governor, Centre after Yeddy Passes Floor Test
Report: Gabriel Vaz
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Oct 11: After the brazen act of getting as many as 16 MLAs, including 11 from BJP and five independents, disqualified from the membership of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly by using a 'compliant' speaker K G Bopaiah, the beleaguered chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has managed to pass the floor test.
The entire exercise was over in a matter of a few minutes with the ruling party winning the motion of confidence of the House by voice vote amid unprecedented tight security and deployment of police forces in and outside the Vidhana Soudha and even imposing severe restrictions on the media from carrying out their legitimate duties.
The combined opposition Congress and JD(S) members as well as the anti-BJP legislators were not allowed to raise any discussion in the House. In fact, the 16 MLAs were prevented from entering the precincts of the Assembly.
The enraged Opposition members immediately trooped to Raj Bhavan to take their complaints against the 'brazen, illegal, undemocratic and unconstitutional' manner in which the ruling BJP managed to overcome the crucial trial of strength in the House in less than a few minutes, and submitted a memorandum to governor H R Bhardwaj demanding dismissal of the Yeddyurappa regime for what they termed as the 'lack of majority in the Assembly.'
Union Cabinet likely to meet at 3.30 pm
The governor, who has been taking a pro-active role in needling the Yeddyurappa regime right from the time he assumed office and has been actively monitoritng the situation including issuing directions even to the speaker K G Bopaiah, can be expected to submit a detailed report to the Centre.
Meanwhile, the Congress-led UPA regime at the Centre, which has reportedly convened an emergency meeting of the Union Cabinet at 3.30 pm, can be expected to take stock of the changing political situation and take suitable decisions based on the governor’s report.
Media allowed but with severe restrictions
The Yeddyurappa-led BJP regime, which had clamped severe restrictions and even sought to ban the media from covering the proceedings, especially the visual media, later relented. The print and visual media representatives were allowed to enter the Vidhana Soudha precincts with one of the unprecedented security check-ups and allowing only the media representatives having the official accreditation cards issued by the information department and the passes issued by the Legislature secretariat only in the year 2010. The check-up was so tight that even the minutest discrepancy was not allowed.
The ruling party had imposed prohibitory orders in and around Vidhana Soudha upto a radius of 2 kms and had even declared holidays for the staff of Vidhana Soudha and Vikas Soudha for the entire day. Even the staff of the Multi-Storeyed Building near the Vidhana Soudha were given half a day’s holiday.
Several media representatives were pushed around and even allegedly assaulted and arrested. In fact, policemen in mufty were allowed to enter the Assembly precincts. There were altercations between the police, media and representatives of political parties, with breaking of glass panes in the Vidhana Soudha.
Along with the restrictions and curbs imposed on the media, it is learnt that the Yeddyurappa regime had even resorted to unscheduled disruption in power supply in Bangalore, Mysore and other prominent cities to prevent the telecast of the proceedings of the political drama from reaching the general public.
Yeddyurappa, who managed to win the trust vote by disqualifying the 16 legislators who had informed the governor in writing about their decision to vote against him, later attacked the Congress and JD(S) leaders. He was particularly harsh on the father-son duo of former prime minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda and his son and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, who is also the state JD(S) president and a Lok Sabha member, for conspiring to destabilise his democratically elected government.
CM celebrates with Venkaiah Naidu
Eshwarappa and Anant Kumar Celebrate
Anant Kumar and CM
CM with daughters and daughters-in-law
CM wishes the speaker
Sweets for the chief secretary
Speaker is Yeddyurappa’s 'puppet'
The chief minister accused Kumaraswamy of employing the services of Mumbai underworld elements to kidnap the ruling party legislators and independents, who had become associate members of the ruling BJP, and virtually keeping them under house arrest in different places and shifting them from place to place and state to state. He accused the Congress-led Goa government headed by Digambar Kamath of joining in the conspiracy to destabilise his democratically elected government.
Kumaraswamy attacked the chief minister’s passing the floor test in the Assembly as the darkest chapter in the history of democracy and in the annals of Karnataka. "The speaker Bopaiah had proved that he is a puppet of Yeddyurappa and lowered the dignity of the august office held by him which had seen stalwarts like V Baliga," he said.
"Yedyurappa has lost his majority in the House. He has misused the speaker's chair. It shows their inability to prove their majority," Kumaraswamy said mentioning that the strength of the members opposed to Yeddyurappa was more than 118 in the 224-memebr Assembly.
KPCC working president D K Shivakumar said, "The House was not conducted, the policemen were inside the House. Within a minute the speaker left. We will go with all the MLAs for the headcount in front of the governor."
Meanwhile, the Union home ministry has expressed serious concern over the Karnataka situation and has taken serious note of it. The tenth schedule of the Constitution has been abused, according to a spokesman of the Union home ministry.
Disqualified MLAs trying to get stay order
Incidentally, all the 16 disqualified MLAs are likely to move the High Court or the Supreme Court and get a stay order against the order of the speaker for their disqualification, which automatically leads to Yeddyurappa regime losing its majority in the House.
The Karnataka High Court has posted hearing on the petition filed by the 16 'disqualified' MLAs before a Division Bench at 3 pm.
It remains to be seen whether the Division Bench of the High Court grants the stay order as sought by the 'disqualified' MLAs.
President’s Rule likely?
It remains to be seen what action the Centre is likely to take in the present situation. Speculation is ripe in political circles that the Centre may decide to dismiss the Yeddyurappa regime for losing its majority in the Assembly and go in for keeping the Assembly in suspended animation.
Thus, it is too early and premature for Yeddyurappa and the ruling BJP to hold celebrations for proving its majority on the floor of the Karnataka Assembly.
Kar 'Natak' So Far...