The fate of Karnataka government now hangs on the verdict of the Supreme Court on the pleas of 16 rebel Congress-JD(S) MLAs seeking direction for speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignations from the assembly. The court will deliver its verdict on Wednesday, July 16. A bench headed by Chief Justice Rajan Gogoi concluded the hearings of the rebel MLAs, the speaker and CM Kumaraswamy. Kumaraswamy said rebel lawmakers were "hunting in pack" to destabilize his government.
"The Speaker has to take notice of the fact that 15 MLAs (lawmakers) are hunting in pack...they went to the hotel together," said senior lawyer Rajeev Dhavan, representing the Chief Minister. He said the Speaker was bound to conduct an inquiry on whether the resignation letters were "genuine and voluntary". The Speaker further requested the court to end status quo on any action against the lawmakers, asserting that he would decide on their resignation or disqualification by July 17.
The dissidents said that the Speaker was implying coercion without proof and pleaded that their resignations must be accepted by the Speaker. "Irrespective of disqualification proceedings against a lawmaker, if he wants to resign, he should be allowed to," said Mukul Rohatgi, representing the rebels. They argued that they could not be "forced to attend the assembly". They also requested the Supreme Court to give the Speaker - whom they described as partisan - a time-frame to decide on the resignations.
As many as 16 MLAs - 13 from the Congress and three from JD(S) - have resigned from the assembly while two independent MLAs have withdrawn their support to the coalition government. With en masse resignation, the government has been pushed to the brink of collapse. In a surprise move, Kumaraswamy had also announced he would seek a trust vote on July 18 to end the 'confusion' caused by resignations of rebel MLAs while asserting he was "ready for everything".
The ruling coalition's total strength is 116 (Congress-78, JD(S)-37 and BSP-1), besides the Speaker. With the support of the two independents, the BJP has 107 MLAs in the 224-member House, where the half-way mark is 113. If the resignations of the 16 MLAs are accepted, the coalition's tally will be reduced to 100. The BJP issued a notice to Speaker during the Business Advisory Committee meeting attended by party leader BS Yeddyurappa seeking to move the no confidence motion.
