BENGALURU: With the Karnataka High Court adjourning the hearing on a petition seeking disqualification of seven JD(S) MLAs to April 2, the ruling Congress is expected to succeed in ensuring the victory of all its three candidates in the Rajya Sabha polls to be held on Friday.
Apart from the rebel JD(S) MLAs — B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan, N Cheluvarayaswamy, A B Ramesha Bandisiddegowda, H C Balakrishna, R Akhanda Srinivas Murthy, Iqbal Ansari and Bheema Naik — the Congress leadership too heaved a sigh of relief as the JD(S) rebel MLAs will be allowed to cast their vote.
The petitioners C N Balakrishna, MLA of Shravanabelagola Assembly constituency, and B B Ningaiah, MLA of Mudigere Assembly segment, both from JD(S), had sought directions from the court to not to allow the rebel MLAs to vote in the Rajya Sabha poll till Assembly Speaker K B Koliwad delivers his orders on the petition before him seeking disqualification of the rebel MLAs.
Congress, which has fielded three candidates, is set to see easy victory for L L Hanumanthaiah and Syed Naseer Hussain, while its third candidate G C Chandreshekar is facing a fight from JD(S) nominee G M Farooq. BJP is comfortably placed to see its nominee Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s victory.
Congress has 122 members in the 225-member Assembly. A candidate needs 44 votes to win. Congress needs to muster 14 more votes to see Chandrashekar sail through. Apart from its 122 MLAs, Congress is confident of getting the support of seven independents and seven rebel JD(S) members to ensure the victory of its third candidate.BJP, with 43 MLAs, is well on course to get its candidate Rajeev Chandrasekhar elected as the party also enjoys the support of BSR Congress MLA P Rajeev and independent MLA C P Yogeshwar.
Case adjourned
The High Court on Thursday adjourned the hearing of the petition seeking disqualification of the rebel JD(S) MLAs to April 2. This was after the senior counsel Jayakumar S Patil, appearing for the Assembly Speaker, sought time to submit a response to the notice issued by the court on the petition. It has come as relief for the rebel MLAs as the court is yet to pass orders on the petitioners’ interim prayer that these MLAs should not be to allowed to vote in the Rajya Sabha elections.
The petitioners have sought directions to disqualify them for voting in favour of the Congress candidates in the Rajya Sabha elections held in 2016, violating the party whip.Before Justice Raghvendra S Chauhan adjourned the hearing to April 2, Patil submitted that a copy of the notice issued on Wednesday was served to Speaker on Thursday. Therefore, he needs time to look into the detailed arguments made by the counsel on the issue to file the comprehensive response to the petition, he argued.
Patil also pointed out to Article 212 of the Constitution which bars the courts from interfering in the business of the legislature. In reply, Justice Chauhan said the court only requested the Speaker to take a decision on the disqualification petition pending before him and the court does not know why there was hesitation to take decision on the long-pending petition by the Speaker.
Senior counsel Uday Holla, representing the petitioners, prayed the court to ask the authorities to put the votes to be cast by the MLAs in question in a separate box and count them separately. The counsel also requested the court to issue direction that the result of the Rajya Sabha elections will be subjected to the result of the petition.