Yeddyurappa resigns; Kumaraswamy to become CM on Monday
BANGALURU : Newly sworn-in Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned on the floor of the House without facing the floor test.Mr. Yeddyurappa gave an emotional speech in the House and said he was not moving the motion, but instead would go to the Governor to submit his resignation.
“I’m resigning as chief minister. I’m grateful to the speaker for giving me this opportunity,” Yeddyurappa said in the Karnataka assembly after it became clear that the BJP wouldn’t get the support of enough MLAs to support his government.
“People blessed us with 104 seats. The mandate wasn’t for the Congress or the JD(S). The governor invited us to form the government because we are the largest party…Till the last breath of my life, I will work for the people of Karnataka,” he said in an emotional speech.
The proceedings of the House were telecast live, as per the Supreme Court order on Friday. Senior BJP MLA K.G. Bopaiah, had been appointed as the Pro Tem Speaker to oversee the proceedings.
BJP, with 104 seats, was seven short of the required number of 111.The Congress with 78 MLAs, the JD(S) with 36 and three others were also individually not in a position to form the government.
JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy said on Saturday the governor Vajubhai Vala has invited the alliance to form a government and announced that he will take oath as the Karnataka chief minister around noon on Monday.
“On the invitation of the Governor I have met him on the basis of the request we had submitted on May 15 for the formation of Congress-JD(S) coalition government….he has invited us to form the government,” Kumaraswamy, who is also state JD(S) chief, said.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Vala, he said the Governor has directed him to prove the majority on the floor of the House in 15 days but he would do it much before.
Kumaraswamy said the swearing-in ceremony would take place tentatively between 12 and 1.50 pm at Kanteerava stadium.
Sources said the time was decided on advice of his astrologer.
The trust vote was ordered by the Supreme Court on a petition by the Congress and JD(S) challenging governor Vajubhai Vala’s decision inviting Yeddyurappa to form the government and prove his majority in 15 days after election results were announced on Tuesday.
The Congress won 78 seats and the JD(S) 37. One seat went to JD(S) ally BSP, and the others to a local party and an independent. Voting was held on May 12 in 222 out of the state’s 224 seats.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi attacked the BJP and the RSS saying hopefully they got a lesson that institutions and will of the country cannot be disrespected. “The country has shown the BJP, PM Narendra Modi and Amit Shah that the institutions of the country are bigger than their moneybags,” Gandhi said at a press conference in New Delhi.
Union minister Prakash Javadekar responded to Gandhi’s allegations, saying the Congress president’s statements were “laughable”, and that the alliance was “opportunistic” and not based on any ideology.
The suspense continued as newly appointed MLAs took the oath of office. Two Congress MLAs, Anand Singh and Pratap Gouda Patil, failed to mark their presence amid reports that they were in a Bengaluru hotel with BJP legislator G Somashekhar Reddy. The MLAs eventually returned to the assembly and were the last to take oath.
The Congress released audio clips that purportedly showed Yeddyurappa and other BJP leaders trying to influence Congress MLAs. Congress and JD(S) MLAs had been bussed to Hyderabad on Friday amid allegations that the BJP was trying to make them switch sides or abstain from voting. They returned to Bengaluru on Saturday morning.
Political rivals of the BJP, which is the ruling party at the Centre, welcomed the developments in Karnataka. “Poor Mr Yeddyurappa. When the puppeteers fail, the puppet falls and breaks,” Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram tweeted.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee posted on the social networking site: “Democracy wins. Congratulations Karnataka. Congratulations Deve Gowda Ji, Kumaraswamy Ji, Congress and others. Victory of the ‘regional’ front.”
Yeddyurappa, became Karnataka’s chief minister for the first time in October 2007 in a BJP-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government. He lasted in the post for over a month, when the JD-S withdrew support and his government fell in November 2007.
He became chief minister for the second time after the BJP came to power for the first time in south India on its own in the May 2008 mid-term assembly election, riding on a sympathy wave over JD (S) “betrayal”.
He had to resign three years later in July 2011 after the Lokayukta, Karnataka’s anti-corruption watchdog, indicted him for alleged corruption in a multi-crore mining scam.
Meanwhile,The CPI(M) has demanded Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala’s resignation as his decision “proved to be wrong” with Mr. Yeddyurappa’s resignation.
The Governor’s decision to invite BJP to form the government was “mala fide” and “against his constitutional mandate”, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury tweets. “If the Governor of Karnataka has any shame left, he should submit his resignation as well.
JD(S)-Congress coalition will not last long, says Ananth Kumar
Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar says the coalition government of Congress and the JD(S) would not last long as it was an “unholy nexus.”
“The new government born out of unholy nexus of Congress and JD(S) won’t stay for long. Only BJP can give the stable government. The mandate was given to BJP as the people of the state had rejected Congress,” he says.
“Today is the day of victory for the Opposition instead of money power. Those who claim to buy everybody have got this lesson today that there are still people left in India’s politics who do not consider politics as business like them. The central government should resign on moral grounds,” UP Ex CM Akhilesh Yadav tweeted. (With Agency Inputs ).
