5 Karnataka MLAs move SC against Speaker

Bengaluru: Posing a fresh challenge to the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government, five Congress MLAs on Saturday moved the Supreme Court on the case over their resignations from the Assembly membership. The five legislators — Mr Anand Singh, Dr K. Sudhakar, M.T.B. Nagaraj, Mr N. Muniratna and Mr Roshan Baig — contended in their application that they had submitted their resignations in accordance with Article 190, read with Rule 202 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business of the Karnataka Assembly.  

“Despite submitting the applications in person, Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar has not accepted them. The act of submitting the resignations in person itself shows that the resignation letters were submitted voluntarily and were genuine,” they stated.

Meanwhile, with the crisis in Karnataka set to mark its eighth day, the Congress went into overdrive with CLP leader Siddaramaiah dispatching his top trouble-shooters D.K. Shivakumar and state Deputy Chief Minister Dr G. Parameshwar who were later joined by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy as they stepped up efforts to pacify Hoskote MLA, M.T.B. Nagaraj. Concurrently, the Congress bigwigs pulled out their big guns, sending MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath, who arrived in Bengaluru late on Saturday alongside senior leader Ghulam Nabi Azad.

Meawhile, Mr Nagaraj, in a huge boost to the Congress' hopes, not only hinted that he might reconsider his resignation, also said he would try and persuade the other rebels to withdraw their objections too.  

However, the BJP upped the ante, demanding that the Chief Minister seek a trust vote on Monday, a day prior to the Supreme Court hearing on a similar petition of 10 other rebel MLAs of Congress-JD(S) who have resigned. BJP sources revealed they are working on bringing in five to six more dissidents to topple the government as part of Mr B.S.Yeddyurappa’s strategy to ensure that a total of 16 Congress and JD(S) MLAs abstain during the trust vote and the two independent MLAs vote against it, which gives it a total of 18 votes against the Kumaraswamy government. Another three MLAs are ready to resign in the middle of session, and maybe two more, a die-hard supporter of Mr Yeddyurappa told this newspaper. "We will defeat the trust vote by more than 6 -7 votes," he said confidently.  

However the Congress which intensified efforts to bring rebel lawmakers back into the party fold, brushed aside the five MLAs’ plaint, banking on private assurances from Mr Ramalinga Reddy and Mr Roshan Baig that they may not take their running battle with Mr. Siddaramaiah to its logical conclusion by voting against the government.

Mr. Siddaramaiah was much more sanguine than he has been for days. Apart from his fellow Kuruba clansmen M.T.B. Nagaraj, the Congress may have also persuaded strongman, R. Ramalinga Reddy to soften his earlier stand on resigning from his legislator's post.