Governor keen on floor test
In the wake of 13 BJP MLAs loyal to KJP leader B S Yeddyurappa offering to resign, Governor H R Bhardwaj on Friday said he would ask Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar to suo motu take a floor test to prove his majority in the Assembly on February 4, when the budget session of the State Legislature is scheduled to commence.
However, the governor, who made his intention clear while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in Bangalore, seemed to have stopped short of communicating the same to Shettar when the latter met him at Raj Bhavan later in the day.
The legislature session is scheduled to commence from February 4 and the governor has still time to ask the chief minister to seek a trust vote on the floor of the House. “I feel the government is in minority. So I will ask the chief minister to settle it in pursuant to the Bommai judgment.
I will deliver my customary address to members of both Houses of Legislature as scheduled. But before the transaction of any government business like budget, confidence vote has to be taken… That is the job of the chief minister,” Bhardwaj told reporters after taking part in a function organised on the occasion of National Voters’ Day.
Shettar, speaking to reporters after meeting Bhardwaj, said the governor has not given him any direction to prove the majority on the floor of the Assembly and he has informed him that his government continues to enjoy majority. He said the resignation episode of 13 rebel BJP legislators “cropped up in their discussion”.
When the 13 MLAs, including two cabinet ministers, went to Speaker K G Bopaiah’s office on Wednesday to submit their resignation letters, the Speaker did a vanishing act, forcing them to knock on the doors of Raj Bhavan.
Besides urging the governor to summon the Speaker to accept their resignation, the aggrieved MLAs led by Yeddyurappa had asked him to take appropriate action against the government.
Further, the governor said soon after receiving a memorandum by the 13 MLAs, he wrote to the chief minister, asking him to meet him at Raj Bhavan.
“I have told him that the session has been convened on February 4 and some of the MLAs are not supporting him. I have asked him to answer this on the floor of the House,” he stated.
He also said that as the House has been already summoned on February 4, there was no need to advance it for the chief minister to take the floor test.
