Urban Mirror Correspondent
New Delhi, May 18: With the Supreme Court directing the Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa to prove his majority on the floor of the House by 4pm on Saturday (tomorrow), the scene has now shifted to Bengaluru for hectic activities in BJP and rivals Congress-JD(S) camps. The apex court has refrained from getting into the legality of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala’s decision inviting Yeddyurappa to form the state’s government and prove majority within 15 days. The court just reduced the time for seeking vote of trust in the house.
The apex court hearing on Friday witnessed 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 represented petitioners challenging Yeddyurappa’s appointment, said 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 thus 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.
