BENGALURU: Insisting that the Supreme Court order on 15 MLAs of the coalition has breached his privilege as Chief of the Congress legislature party, Siddaramaiah on Thursday sought postponement of the trust vote. Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy moved the confidence motion as soon as the assembly convened on Thursday only to be interrupted by Siddaramaiah's 'point of order'.
What followed was multiple outbreaks of ruckus with BJP accusing the coalition of deliberately dragging the proceedings of the house with intent to delay trust vote. The Congress raised a point of order that the SC order giving discretion to 15 MLAs on attending session was in contradiction to the rights of the party to issue whip under 10th schedule of the constitution.
"As legislative party leader I have the right to issue whip and MLAs who have taken B-form from Congress party and have won elections are compelled to be bound by it. The recent SC order seems like it is infringing upon my privileges," Siddaramaiah said.
Minister Krishna Byregowda added to the point of order. "MLAs are either members of the house or they are not. The SC order has created confusion whether the 15 rebel MLAs are members of the house. The speaker has to decide whether they are members or not considering that their resignations have been submitted and parties have also filed disqualification petitions. Resignations and disqualification, both are pending before Speaker. It would be incomplete to put the house to floor test when there is no clarity on whether these MLAs are members or not. This is our point of order," he said.
MLAs of the BJP took turns to allege that the coalition, that has been reduced to a minority, was unnecessarily bringing up issues to delay proceedings. "Never in history had we seen people raising one point of order after another with an intention to drag the discussion on point of order till evening. The point of order being raised has got nothing to do with the agenda listed today. Let them issue a notice that they want to discuss honour of the house, speaker etc. We will come prepared. What kind of digression is this? Asked Madhuswamy, MLA, BJP.
Despite the BJP pushing for a time frame to put the house to the floor test, the Congress appealed to the Speaker to put the process on hold. "Despite the whip, if they don't come it will be a huge setback to the coalition. My appeal to you is that till a decision is final on MLAs and I seek clarification on whip from SC, that taking the trust vote isn't right," Siddaramaiah said. On that note, the speaker adjourned the house till 3 PM