It's curtains down for 14th Legislative Assembly

The 14th Karnataka Legislative Assembly, which is in the final leg of its five-year term, concluded the last day of its session on Friday, with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah asserting that he will return to the treasury benches after the Assembly elections.

The present session of the legislature was adjourned sine die, with the government obtaining approval to the finance bill, vote on account, for the first three months of the coming financial year. The last day of the session was marked by slogan shouting and chaos with members trading charges of corruption against each other.

The 14th Assembly had met for a total of 244 days in the past five years -- 41 days more than the previous 13th Assembly. Siddaramaiah, who recently presented his 6th budget in a row, is the only one after former chief minister the late Ramakrishna Hegde to have presented 13 budgets.

On the brink of completing his five-year term, he is also the only chief minister to complete the full term after the late D Devaraj Urs. Siddaramaiah regretted that his government could not conduct the session for the stipulated 60 days every year. The quality of debates had also deteriorated, he added.

The 14th Assembly, which was convened 21 times in the past five years, held its proceedings five times at Belagavi's Suvarna Vidhana Soudha. As many as 18 bills were tabled during this session, with 17 of them getting passed. One bill which proposed an amendment to the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976, was withdrawn. This Assembly, which witnessed the death of many sitting members such as Venkatesh Naik, Gurupadappa Nagamarpalli, Qamar-ul-Islam, Chikkamadu   and K S Puttanaiah, currently has four seats vacant. Two owing to the death of Puttanaiah and Chikkamadu, and two owing to the resignation of Shivaraj Patil and Manappa Vajjal.

The Assembly saw the legislators staging all-night dharnas in the House demanding the ouster of Minister K J George in connection with the death of DySP M K Ganapathi. Both Houses had also witnessed an uproar over the deaths of IAS officers D K Ravi and Anurag Tiwari.

Siddaramaiah himself had come under the scanner over the Hublot watch issue and charges of nepotism concerning his son Dr Yathindra.