By IANS,
Bangalore: A constitutional crisis loomed over Karnataka Monday as Governor H.R. Bhardwaj recommended president’s rule in the state after beleaguered Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa won a trust vote amid chaotic scenes in the assembly and 16 rebel legislators went to court against their disqualification by speaker K.G. Bopaiah.
On a day of swift and dramatic political developments, Bhardwaj faxed a report to the central government for declaring president’s rule and keeping the assembly in suspended animation citing a constitutional breakdown in the state due to the conduct of the speaker, who allowed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government to prove its majority through a voice vote.
The governor’s report comes in the wake of the opposition Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) parading 120 legislators at Raj Bhavan to demonstrate that the Yeddyurappa government was in minority and hence deserved to be dismissed.
“The speaker conspired with the minority government to get the trust vote passed in an unconstitutional and undemocratic manner as an agent of the ruling party after disqualifying the 16 legislators and preventing their entry into the house,” Congress legislative party leader Siddaramaiah told reporters later.
Echoing the Congress stand, JD-S state president and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy urged the governor to sack the 29-month-old government, saying it had no moral right to continue after it was reduced to minority and had abused the official machinery to win the trust vote in an unprecedented manner.
“The speaker had no right to disqualify the 16 legislators before the trust vote was taken up and deny them their constitutional right to attend the house and vote against the corrupt and scandalous government as they had already withdrawn their support,” Kumaraswamy, a member of the Lok Sabha from Ramanagara constituency, asserted.
A much-relieved Yeddyurappa, however, termed the governor’s report unfortunate and urged President Pratibha Patil to recall him saying he was “more a Congress agent than a constitutional head of the state”.
“We have won the confidence motion after the speaker directed me to move it and asked for voice vote. As the opposition did not press for the division of votes, Bopaiah adjourned the house sine die after we secured 106 votes against nil from the Congress and JD-S,” Yeddyurappa told reporters later.
Meanwhile, in New Delhi the Congress Core Committee met to discuss the various options to tackle the situation in Karnataka.
The Congress is understood to have decided to wait till Tuesday for the Karnataka High Court verdict on the disqualification of 11 dissident legislators ahead of the trust vote.
The Karnataka High Court, which admitted a joint writ petition by the rebels, adjourned the case for further hearing to Tuesday, as arguments from both sides remained inconclusive.
A division bench of the high court, headed by Chief Justice K.S. Khehar and Justice N. Kumar, agreed to hear the petition on urgent basis but declined to give relief to the dissidents by staying the disqualification order.
Challenging the disqualification order, which was issued before dawn, defence counsel P.P. Rao told the court that the rebels were not given seven days to reply to the speaker’s show-cause notice as per rules of the state legislative rules.
“The speaker served the notice on the rebels Oct 8 and asked them to reply by 5 p.m. Oct 10, giving only two days to reply instead of seven days in violation of the rules,” Rao said.
Government’s counsel Soli Sorabjee, however, defended the speaker’s action by saying that the disqualification of the rebels, including the independents was in conformity with the Anti-Defection Act, 1985.