All eyes shift back to Bengaluru after the Supreme Court refrained from getting into the legality of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala inviting BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa to form the state’s government, but reduced the time the chief minister should get to prove his majority to Saturday, 4 pm.
A Supreme Court hearing on Friday saw senior lawyers Mukul Rohatgi and Abhishek Manu Singhvi arguing over Vala’s decision. Rohatgi was representing three BJP MLAs, who have said that Yeddyuruppa had staked claim as it was the single largest party.
Singhvi, who was representing petitioners challenging Yeddyurappa’s appointment, argued that Vala ought to have invited the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance which said their letter to Governor Vala listed MLAs who supported them.
Rohatgi, however, disputed the authenticity of the Congress-JD(S) MLAs named in the letter. Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta too said Vala had not received signed letters from the Congress-JD-S alliance.
A three-judge bench decided that the legality of Governor Vala’s action can be determined later, and for now, the urgency was to have a floor test. Singhvi agreed but said there should be videography and proper security for MLAs to vote fearlessly.
The court ordered the Karnataka police to make arrangements for floor test on Saturday. It also told Governor Vata not to nominate any Anglo-Indian community member as MLA till the floor test is over.
In the house of 224, the Karnataka assembly currently has 221 MLAs–elections in two seats were deferred, and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy won in two constituencies.
The BJP has 104 seats of its own and claims to have the support of one Independent MLA. It has to either get 111 votes–which would entail engineering a split of two thirds of the MLAs of Congress or the Janata Dal (Secular). BJP leaders admit this would be almost impossible in the current political circumstances.
Their second option, thus, would be to get a set of 13 MLAs from either the Congress or the JD(S) or a mix of both to resign or abstain. This would reduce the strength of the house, and the BJP would then need just the majority of the strength to be able to win. It is this scenario the party is working on.
The BJP is tapping the Lingayat network, including mutts, to work on Congress’ MLAs from the community to ensure that some of them switch loyalties. The BJP has rejected the Congress and JD(S)’s allegations that it is trying to bribe their MLAs. One Congress MLA has already switched, and an independent MLA appears to be vacillating.
The court has thrown back the ball in the political court. It is now up to Yeddyurappa to show the numbers.
Source: HT
