BENGALURU: After four days of haggling, Speaker Ramesh Kumar finally managed to end the impasse over the confidence motion by putting it to vote on Tuesday evening. In fact, Kumar had come to the House with a resignation letter in his pocket, prepared to resign if the Congress-JDS failed to adhere to his direction to complete formalities by 7 pm.
“I have already prepared a resignation letter to submit at whatever time I feel that my self-respect is being hurt. The letter is right in my pocket. People, who don’t know how to submit a resignation letter today will speak ill about me. It can amount to contempt of the House if they speak ill of the procedure,” the Speaker warned the members, while asking them to cooperate with him to complete the process.
Since he had come under fire from the opposition for failing to complete the process by Monday evening as agreed during the business advisory committee meeting, the Speaker on Tuesday insisted that the members complete the debate and the process. At the end of the day, Kumar won the hearts of both the sides.
He allowed the Congress-JDS members to take part in the debate and also ensured that BJP’s demand for completing the process by the end of the day was met.