Only 19 of 224 MLAs attend post-lunch legislature session

 It looks like the MLAs, including ministers, have no zeal to attend the ongoing legislature session. During the post-lunch session on Friday, hardly 19 of the total 224 MLAs were present. Eventually Speaker K B Koliwad had to adjourn the House to Monday.

Usually, the Assembly is adjourned for the day at around 2 pm on Fridays. However, Deputy Speaker N H Shivashankar Reddy adjourned the House for lunch and stated that a post lunch session will be held so that discussion on budget proposals could be completed.

The quorum bell was switched on at 3 pm by the Assembly staff. However, most of the members had left. At 3.45 pm there were only 19 members in the House falling four short of the quorum of 23 required to take up proceedings. Quorum is 10% of the total strength of the House.

In the Opposition benches, there were only two BJP members - Guru Patil and Ramesh Bhusanur and two JD(S) members - N H Konareddi and H K Kumaraswamy.

Only 14 members of the ruling Congress were present including ministers K R Ramesh Kumar, R Roshan Baig, Ramalinga Reddy, Eshwar Khandre, Rudrappa Lamani, U T Khader and A Manju.

The party position in the Assembly is Congress (123); BJP (44) and JD-S (40) At 3.50 pm, Koliwad arrived and started the proceedings. However, Ramesh Kumar said that there was no point in having a discussion with just a handful of members.

Reddy and Baig said it is unlikely that more members will arrive and suggested that the House be adjourned to Monday. Koliwad adjourned the House.
  Interestingly, except for Reddy and Baig, none of the other 26 MLAs from Bengaluru attended the House.