By IANS,
Bangalore : A flip-flop Congress Thursday attended the special session of the Karnataka assembly to take part in the second confidence motion after reversing an earlier decision at the 11th hour.
Reversing their boycott decision taken at its legislative party meeting an hour before the trust vote was taken up in the house, the Congress legislators attended the session.
“Though we decided to boycott the session as the second trust vote is unconstitutional and around 15 legislators are unable to be present, we have changed our mind to attend the session to present our case on the floor of the house,” Congress legislator and party’s working president D.K. Shivakumar told reporters outside the assembly.
The Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S), which also threatened to boycott the session Wednesday, also decided to attend the trust vote.
Unlike Monday when the first trust vote was passed by voice vote amid mayhem, the proceedings this time began smoothly and in an orderly manner.
With the strength of the 225-member house that includes one nominated reduced to 208 and 105 as the halfway mark to win the trust vote, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ensured presence of all its 105 lawmakers in the house Thursday.
The Congress has 73 members and the JD-S 28.
The speaker barred the entry of the 16 disqualified legislators — 11 of the BJP and five independents — into the state secretariat where the assembly is located, as the high court Wednesday rejected the latter’s interim petition for exercising their vote.