Appealing to Congress and JD (S) to work together for the betterment of the state, he added, "I appeal to the opposition that we must work together. I appeal to House to unanimously express confidence in me." (ANI)
Kumar on Sunday disqualified with immediate effect 14 rebel MLAs, days after the Congress-JD(S) government collapsed after losing the confidence motion.
Out of the 14 MLAs, 11 of them are from Congress. The disqualified legislators include -- Pratap Gowda Patil, BC Patil, Shivanand Hebbar, ST Somashekar, Shrimant Patil, BA Basavaraja, Anand Singh, R Roshan Baig, Muniratna, K Sudhakar and MTB Nagaraj.
Senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi said that rebel MLAs enjoy protection from the Supreme Court against disqualification and they were free to participate or not in the proceedings in the Assembly during the trust vote.
The Congress-JDS government slumped into a minority earlier this month following the resignation of several dissident MLAs. Sixteen MLAs from the ruling coalition including thirteen Congress and three JD(S) MLAs have resigned.
On Friday, the Assembly failed to meet two deadlines set by Governor Vajubhai Vala to complete the trust vote. After that, Chief Minister Kumaraswamy moved the Supreme Court challenging the Governor's directive to the government saying it was in violation of the law.
The Assembly was debating a confidence motion moved by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy that came in the wake of several resignations submitted by Congress-JD(S) MLAs.
The disqualification proceedings are being used to threaten and intimidate the MLAs. On one hand, the Speaker is not acting upon the resignation and on the other, a whip has been issued threatening disqualification for failure to attend the legislature proceeding starting July 12," the petition stated.
Situation was such that we submitted our resignations but now D K Shivakumar and others came and requested us to withdraw resignations, I will speak to K Sudhakar Rao and then see what is to be done,. After all I have spent decades in Congress
The case will come up tomorrow for hearing and the Director General of Police (DGP), Karnataka, has been directed to provide proper police protection to all the 10 MLAs when they land in Bengaluru and go to the Speaker's office
