BENGALURU: The fifteen days budget session of the Karnataka joint legislature concluded here on Friday with a bitter note. Assembly Speaker U T Khader suspended eighteen members of the opposition BJP for six months from the house for showing disregard to his chair during the ruckus over the issue of alleged honey trap attempt on cooperation minister K N Rajanna.
The legislative council also witnessed pandemonium over the issue with the opposition party legislators attacking the government.
In the assembly, opposition party legislators led by Leader of Opposition R Ashoka stormed into the well in protest of the suspension of their party MLAs. As the suspended MLAs resisted the marshals physically lifted them away from the house amid hue and cry from the Opposition.
"Since they have shown disrespect to the Constitutional chair, I acted in order to protect the dignity of the chair. The people of the state have watched all that has happened. I gave a lot of scope for the opposition party members to speak in the house and acted neutral not favouring any party, either Congress or BJP," U T Khader said defending his act while speaking later to the media.
The grouse of the opposition was that despite a minister allegedly involved in the attempt to honey trap his colleague in the government action has been initiated against the BJP legislators and not against the allegdly accused minister. As soon as the session started on Friday morning, the Opposition (BJP) members raised the issue with R Ashoka demanding a judicial probe by a sitting judge.
Unperturbed, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was giving a reply on his budget. The opposition members took strong exception for not responding to their demand as the case is serious and insisted he speak on the issue first. Meanwhile, Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara reiterated that he had already announced that a high level investigation will be conducted into the incident.
"Rajanna has not filed a complaint yet and I just cannot guess what would be in it", Parameshwara maintained.
Siddaramaiah eventually issued a statement that there is no question of protecting anyone in the incident. "It is the responsibility of the government to provide protection to whoever is involved in the case. The guilty must be punished according to the law. After the Home Minister replied that if Rajanna files a complaint, a high-level investigation will be conducted, it is not appropriate to raise the issue again. Rajanna did not name anyone. If he had, action could have been taken", Siddaramaiah clarified.
Not satisfied with the CM's statement, the opposition members went to the well of the house and staged a dharna. They picked up the copies of certain bills that the government had proposed to pass in the Assembly, tore them and hurled them at the Speaker. The 18 MLAs who went up to the Speaker's chair allegedly created inconvenience in delivering their duties even as the CM warned them not to do so.
Meanwhile, the speaker adjourned the session for sometime but ensured that the listed bills were passed before the session concluded. After a couple of hours when the business resumed post-lunch the Speaker proposed the government make a move to suspend the MLAs who showed disregard to the chair by obstructing the proceedings.
Following the law and parliamentary affairs minister H K Patil's proposal, the Speaker suspended the BJP MLAs.The suspended BJP MLAs are; Doddanna Gowda Patil, C K Ramamurthy, Dr C N Ashwath Narayan, S R Vishwanath, Byrati Basavaraj, M R Patil, Channabasappa, B Suresh Gowda, Umanath Kotian, Sharanu Salagar, Shailendra Beldal, Yashpal Suvarna, Harish BP, Bharat Shetty, Muniratna, Basavaraj Mattimod, Dheeraj Muniraju and Dr Chandru Lamani.
Honey trap done to occupy CM's chair: R Ashoka
"Minister K N Rajanna spoke about the honey trap on the floor of the house. It has been alleged that judges and central leaders are also subjected to honey traps. It is learnt that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah himself instructed Rajanna to make a statement. Despite all this, this should not be left alone without investigating", R Ashoka told reporters later.
Ashoka demanded that the government should immediately hand over the case to a judicial investigation team or hand it over to the CBI for investigation.
"The government should take this seriously as Rajanna's statement is now the property of the house. The honey trap is being carried out (by a minister) to occupy the Chief Minister's chair", he alleged.
