Kumaraswamy ready to seek trust vote in Karnataka Assembly

Bengaluru, July 12 (IANS) A defiant Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Friday said he was ready to seek trust vote to prove that his JD-S-Congress coalition government had majority in the Assembly.

"As I am ready to seek trust vote to prove my government has majority, I request you to fix date and time to move it in the House," Kumaraswamy told Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar, as the 10-day Monsoon session of the legislature began here.

Catching an upbeat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by surprise, Kumaraswamy said he was also ready to face a trial of strength in the Assembly if the BJP moved a no-confidence motion.

"I leave it to you to decide if I should seek trust-vote or face a no-confidence motion on the floor of this House when you fix the date and time," the Chief Minister told the Speaker in Kannada.

"I can continue as Chief Minister after the floor test in view of the prevailing political situation caused by the spate of resignations by some of our legislators," added Kumaraswamy.

Kumaraswamy's sudden act of bravado came soon after the Supreme Court in New Delhi gave the Speaker time till Tuesday (July 16) to decide on the resignations of the 10 rebel Congress and JD-S legislators.

The 10 rebels, including seven of the Congress and three of the JD-S, had petitioned the apex court on July 10 that the Speaker was deliberately delaying acceptance of their resignations they submitted in his office on July 6.

The Speaker, however, said that of the 13 resignations received by his office eight were not in the prescribed format and he wanted them re-submitted by July 11. The rebel MLAs re-submitted their resignations to him on Thursday here.

Resignations of the remaining five MLAs were in order and so the Speaker asked three of them to meet him on July 12 (Friday) and agreed to hear two other MLAs on July 15 to ensure that they had resigned from their Assembly seats voluntarily and genuinely.

Six more Congress lawmakers who resigned, did not go to the top court against the Speaker.

Directing the Speaker to maintain a status quo on the rebels' plea, the three-judge bench of the top court, headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, said they (rebels) will remain legislators and would not be disqualified.

The Congress and JD-S have also petitioned the Speaker to disqualify the 10 rebels who went to the apex court against him for defying their whip to attend their respective legislature party meetings.

The top court gave the Speaker additional time on his plea to modify its Thursday order to decide on the resignations by Friday.

The 10 rebel legislators who went to the Supreme Court are Ramesh Jarkiholi, Byrati Basavraju, B.C. Patil, Shivaram Hebbar, S.T. Somashekar, Prathapgouda Patil and Mahesh Kumatahali of the Congress and K. Gopalaiah, A.H. Vishwanath, K.C. Narayan Gowda of the JD(S).

The six remaining Congress rebel legislators who also resigned are Anand Singh, R. Ramalinga Reddy, Munirathna, R.Roshan Baig, K.Sudhakar and state Housing Minister M.T.B. Nagaraj.