NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: The Supreme Court on Friday toughened the challenge for Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa to prove his majority on the floor of the House by slashing to 28 hours the 15-day window provided to him by governor Vajubhai Vala.
Instead of going into the legalities of the governor's decision, the bench of Justices A K Sikri, S A Bobde and Ashok Bhushan decided that asking for an early floor test would be a better option.
The order came despite a plea by Yeddyurappa's counsel Mukul Rohatgi for a "little more time" -- at least until Monday -- and that the time given was "too short". But the bench stuck to its Saturday 4pm deadline for the floor test. To ensure its realisation, the bench ordered that the trial of strength be conducted by the pro tem speaker rather than a regular speaker, electing whom would have cut into the tight timeframe.
It compounds Yeddyurappa's task to manage the numbers and win over at least seven MLAs to add to his 104, to reach the majority number of 111 in the House with an effective strength of 221, and redoubled his campaign managers' efforts in the remaining hours. Congress, which had lately been critical of the apex court and even suggested that the institution was being bullied by the government, was jubilant over the development and lavished it with praise for its "historic verdict".
The SC secured an assurance from Yeddyurappa that he would not announce major policy decisions, including nominating a member of the Anglo-Indian community as an MLA, and ordered Karnataka police to make "adequate and sufficient arrangements" for the security of MLAs. It asked the director general of police to personally supervise the arrangements "so that there is no lapse on this count whatsoever".
While BJP was reconciled to the prospect of the 15-day window being pruned to a week, having to lure away seven MLAs of the rival combine by 4pm on Saturday in the immediate aftermath of a bitterly contested election could prove to be like suddenly doubling the asking rate for a team batting second in a T20 game.
Yeddyurappa, who will be only the second Karnataka CM after Ramakrishna Hegde to face a trial of strength thrice, remained upbeat. The BJP camp appeared to have recovered from its shock when governor Vajubhai Vala appointed K G Bopaiah the pro tem speaker.
Throughout the day, tension between the two camps continued to build. Congress-JD(S) MLAs reached Hyderabad after an eight-hour journey by bus after planes chartered to ferry them to Kochi were allegedly denied permission to take off from Bengaluru.
At the meeting held with Congress leaders, 77 of the 78 MLAs were present on Friday evening, indicating no break in their ranks, for now. The lawmakers are expected back in the state capital by early Saturday morning.
The BJP also herded its MLAs into Shangri-la hotel in Bengaluru, the same one used by JD(S) earlier in the week for its MLAs. All, including city MLAs, are expected to be there tonight.
As on the previous two days, rumour mills were abuzz through the day: about Lingayat MLAs of the JD(S)-Congress alliance being in touch with the BJP, and Vokkaliga MLAs in the saffron party cozying up to the combine owing to caste sentiments. The parties rubbished such reports.
The Constitution is silent on who should be appointed the pro tem speaker, though the honour of administering oath to newly-elected MLAs, by convention, goes to the seniormost member of the House. Congress instantly screamed foul, saying the responsibility should have been assigned to R V Deshpande, its veteran MLA who won his eighth term on Tuesday. The Congress-JD(S) combine moved the SC again, this time expressing fear that Bopaiah might disqualify its members, and sought a directive to the pro tem speaker not to “take up any agenda other than administration of oath and the floor test”.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar refuted the ‘seniority’ convention and pointed out that Bopaiah had been made pro tem speaker by the then governor in 2008 when he was 10 years younger.
Importantly, through its latest petition, which the SC will hear at 10.30am on Saturday, Congress renewed its demand for segregating MLAs supporting and opposing the trust motion in different lobbies. The court had not heeded the demand when it was raised in the morning, and had said the matter should be left to the pro tem speaker. The reiteration of the plea brought out Congress’s fear of defections, although it claimed that except for Anand Singh, all its MLAs had been accounted for.
This will be the third floor test that Yeddyurappa will face. In 2007, he resigned ahead of the floor test after JD(S) leadership refused to extend support to his government and in 2011, he comfortably won.
Yeddyurappa exuded confidence, saying he would win the floor test easily and insisted that many Congress-JD(S) MLAs would vote in his favour. “We welcome the Supreme Court ruling... we have already got support of 120 MLAs including 16 from Congress and JD(S) camps and are confident of proving our majority,” Yeddyurappa’s close aide and Udupi-Chikkamagalur MP Shobha Karandlaje said.
There was further drama when Congress released an audio recording of a conversation allegedly between discredited mining baron G Janardhana Reddy and Congress MLA from Raichur Rural (ST) constituency Basannagouda Daddal, in which the former was allegedly heard offering the latter a ministerial post and other inducements and giving examples of two others in the past who he had brought to BJP and helped thrive.
