HDK dares Speaker

 
The JD(S) Karnataka unit president, who was closeted with the 13 BJP MLAs at a five-star hotel, told reporters that the Opposition was determined to defeat the BJP, and he alleged that the Yeddyurappa regime was misusing the Government machinery and the Speaker’s office to win the confidence vote.

“The JD(S) and the Congress ‘will work together’ to ensure the fall of the BJP government during the trust vote scheduled on Monday,” he stated. The dissident MLAs including the independents, had earlier in the wee hours , checked into Park Sheraton Hotel in Chennai after they landed from Goa.

Denying horse-trading, Kumaraswamy said their first priority was to see that “this dirty, corrupt Government falls.” The Opposition would later chalk out the next course of action, he underscored. On the rationale of the JD(S) leader openly hobnobbing with the rebel MLAs, he attributed it to old-time “affection and mutual understanding.”

Questioning the Speaker’s warning to the dissident MLAs, Kumaraswamy said the former threatening to disqualify even the independent MLAs was unheard of, so far in the country.

Some of the dissident MLAs claimed that they were not ‘kidnapped’ from their hotel in Goa on Saturday and added they had all come here on their volition. “It’s a tussle between ‘dharma’ and ‘adharma’, Kumaraswamy chipped in to add in morally backing the dissidents. Later, all of them checked out of the star hotel this evening and moved to the Chennai airport from where they are slated to take a flight to Bangalore tonight.