"I am the Opposition Leader"

Two Freudian slips by Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah, mellowed the tense atmosphere in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday.

Speaking after raising a point of order, Siddaramaiah was talking about the 10th schedule of the Constitution, when he was interrupted by the Opposition MLAs. After the Speaker silenced the Opposition MLAs, Siddaramaiah said, "I am the leader of the Opposition party," which was followed by a loud thumping on the desk by BJP legislators.

Realising his mistake, Siddaramaiah quickly clarified saying, "I mean I am the leader of the Congress Legislature Party. I was the leader of the Opposition for four years. It was a slip of tongue," he said.

When he pulled up the BJP MLAs for being happy about his slip of tongue, speaker Ramesh Kumar intervened and said, "Let them be a little happy at least."

Shortly afterwards, he was highlighting how the rebel MLAs had resigned en masse. However, rather than pointing out Congress and JD(S) legislators, he said BJP and JD(S) MLAs have resigned en masse, leading to another round of laughter in the House.

Sriramulu, DKS chat

An informal meeting between senior BJP leader B Sriramulu and Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar caught the attention.

The meeting, lasting for a few minutes, took place during the lunch break.

On seeing Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister Parameshwara and Shivakumar discussing something, Sriramulu looked at them. He smiled when Kumaraswamy and Shivakmar waived hands at him. Within seconds, Shivakumar met Sriramulu and spoke to him. There were rumours that Shivakumar offered the post of deputy chief minister to Sriramulu for his support to the Coalition government.

"The Congress leaders are not that kind-hearted to make me deputy chief minister. I won't join them, rather I welcome Shivakumar to my party," he said.

Best buddies

»The House witnessed a discussion on close friendship between former minister V Somanna and Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.

Requesting to permit the voting, Somanna said, "You should be Ramesh Kumar I know."

When Congress legislators objected, Kumar said: "Somanna has been my close friend for the last 38 years. He said so out of love and affection. Somanna, I will be Ramesh Kumar you know, but while on the Chair I will be Ramesh Kumar as Speaker."

19 motions since 1961

Karnataka has witnessed 19 motions of confidence and no-confidence against incumbent governments since 1961. Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s floor test on Friday could be the 20th.

Twelve of them have been no-confidence motions and the rest seven confidence motions.

While all the seven confidence motions have concluded in one day, the no-confidence motions have gone up to four days to reach finality.

The last time a no-confidence motion was moved in Karnataka was in July 2015. Ironically, it was the JD(S) led by Kumaraswamy that had unsuccessfully moved the motion against the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government. After a fractured mandate in the May 2018 Assembly polls, the two parties went on to join hands to form a coalition, which is now on the brink of collapse.