Karnataka: The Supreme Court has ordered the BS Yeddyurappa-led BJP government to take floor test at 4 pm on Saturday.
The court resumed hearing a petition filed by Congress-Janata Dal Secular (JDS) combine, challenging Governor Vajubhai Vala’s invitation to Yeddyurappa for the taking the oath as Karnataka Chief Minister.
Karnataka Governor had given 15 days to Yeddyurappa for a test of strength. The Supreme Court, however, asked him to take the trust vote on Saturday, reducing the time down to 24 hours for winning over more lawmakers. Yeddyurappa’s lawyer Mukul Rohtagi had asked for a week but the court rejected it.
The senior-most lawmaker will supervise the floor test and has been asked to vote in case there’s a tie. Yeddyurappa has also been directed not to take any executive decisions until the floor test.
“Better that the floor test is on Saturday as nobody gets any time,” said one of the three judges hearing the case. His request for a secret ballot was also denied by the court. Yeddyurappa, however, said that they will get a good majority. His party, BJP tweeted, “Bring it on!”
The BJP has 104 lawmakers and support of one independent MLA and are falling short of seven for the majority mark of 112. On the other hand, Congress-JDS combine have 116 legislators.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi also took to twitter bashing BJP.
Today’s Supreme Court order, vindicates our stand that Governor Vala acted unconstitutionally.
The BJP’s bluff that it will form the Govt., even without the numbers, has been called out by the court.
Stopped legally, they will now try money & muscle, to steal the mandate.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) May 18, 2018
The bigger question of who gets the first shot at power in case of a split verdict, the single largest party without a majority or an alliance with a majority, will be later decided by the court after today’s interim order.
On Thursday night, Congress and JDS moved their lawmakers from Bengaluru to Hyderabad. They were taken in a bus to the Telangana capital, 569 km from Bengaluru. During the overnight journey, former minister DK Shivakumar said, “The central government was kind enough to refuse all permission for flight so taking the road.”
They are being kept into a five-star hotel making it yet another incident of resort-politics in India, done to prevent BJP from luring them into its fold. The Congress and JDS alleged that the lawmakers were threatened and offered a bribe of Rs 100 crore. They also claimed that one of the lawmakers, Anand Singh, was kidnapped.
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