On 11/10/2010 Karnataka Legislative Assembly witnessed some unusual scenes and BJP government survived. Congress and JD(S) screamed murder of democracy.
The Speaker had disqualified 11 BJP and 5 independent MLAs before the vote. He did what a Congress Speaker had done in Maharashtra some years back when Shiv Sena had support of some Congress MLAs. That time the Speaker had disqualified the Congress MLAs who were to vote with Shiv Sena. Now for Congress to claim BJP acted unconstitutionally does not make sense. Congress must remember the role its Speakers like Shivraj Patil, Madhukarrao Chowdhury, Pratapsingh Rane have played. What is sauce for goose is sauce for gander. However the Speaker disqualifying 5 independent MLAs is not justified though V. S. Acharya said that Supreme Court in its judgment in 2005 said independent MLAs could be disqualified.
Speaking of constitution, there is no provision for vote of confidence in constitution. There is provision for vote of no confidence. The Speaker is a constitutional authority and the Governor has no authority to tell him not to disqualify members. The disqualified MLAs have gone to High Court. The constitution had barred court jurisdiction in disqualification matters and Supreme Court had struck down that section.
Hans Raj Bharadwaj, Governor of Karnataka, has acted as a Congressman. He was Law Minister. Veerappa Moily, Law Minister of India, has history of trying to dislodge non-Congress governments and other Congress Chief Ministers. He had tried to bring down the government headed by Ramakrishna Hegde. He had offered two lakh rupees to Byre Gowda. The tape of the conversation was public. S. K. Desai, the judge who headed the Inquiry Commission on the tape and said the voice of not Moily’s, was later caught in a corruption scam. When Veerappa Moily was Chief Minister, S. M. Krisha was Deputy Chief Minister and one Congress meeting ended in vandalism and there was a cartoon that said if Krishna had wished Mahabharata could have been avoided.
BJP government in Karnataka is riven with disunity. Once Reddy Brothers created problems. Now others have created problems. Congress should not have joined with JD(S) to bring down BJP government. It should remember what Kumaraswamy did to them. BJP in Karnataka is destroying itself, it does not need enemies.