Quote:Governor Bhardwaj’s recommendation of President’s rule needs to be thrown into the dustbin, senior BJP leaders told rediff.com.



Senior cabinet minister V S Acharya said that the Governor’s move did not worry the BJP.



“Throw it into the dustbin. That is where it deserves to be,” he said, adding, “The SR Bomai judgment* clearly states that the Governor has no role here. More over we have the numbers and the speaker has conducted the proceedings and that is for every one to see. We are confident that the central government will think 10 times before it even acts on the matter. If better sense prevails, it will not consider the recommendation.”



*[The SR Bommai vs Centre case: The judgment, delivered by the Supreme Court on May 11, 1994, defined the use of Article 356 and imposition of President's rule. When the then Congress government at the Centre dismissed the S R Bommai government in Karnataka in 1989, Bommai challenged the dismissal. In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court held that a state government could be dismissed only under extenuating circumstances, and laid down guidelines for such a dismissal.



Though political parties have flouted the Supreme Court norms, the Bommai case has made dismissing state governments and imposing President's rule a little more difficult.]

Quote:The core committee, which met after the arrival of Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee [ Images ] from Washington, DC, while deciding not to act in a hurry, discussed the political equations in Karnataka, but appeared to be clear at this stage that the party was not interested in any tie up with H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular.



The overwhelming mood of the core committee, said sources, was that the government should not take any action which would give any political advantage to the BJP, or make the first BJP government in the south as 'martyrs,' which they can encash later.



Pranab Mukherjee is learnt to have told the meeting that the government should wait for the high court order and see its implications as any hasty step could give BJP the advantage even in Bihar, as the party could orchestrate the campaign that its 'duly elected government had been dismissed by the Centre.'



Highly placed sources said that the Karnataka Governor H R Bharadwaj in his report to the Centre has suggested a number of options which the government can examine.



While stating that Karnataka can be placed in suspended animation under President's Rule, the governor has said that the state government can be asked to go in for another trial of strength to prove its majority since the MLAs were not given 7 days notice before their disqualification.



He is learnt to have said that there were 'unruly scenes' in the state assembly with even the MLCs coming into the assembly, and that has made the situation difficult.



Stating the options as a constitutional expert himself, the governor is also learnt to have advised the Centre to wait for the pronouncement of the high court on the fate of the 16 disqualified MLAs, 11 of whom are from the BJP and 5 are independents.



With the Congress leadership clear that it did not want to give the BJP any political advantage, which may be the case if President's Rule is imposed, the Centre has decided to give the BJP and its government in Karnataka time to either get its act together or alternatively to wait and see if more MLAs leave the party wagon, which would further complicate matters for the BJP.



However, final word will be known on the issue when Union cabinet meets on Tuesday. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh [ Images ] will have a fresh look on Tuesday on the issue.



The Congress party in its daily briefing however made its position clear, stating that Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yedyurappa was heading a minority government in the state and what had happened in the assembly on Monday was 'the murder of democracy in the temple of democracy.'

Quote:Even the Hinduism spirit probably the-only state that has done impressive interms of vedic studues in schools, temples as Hindu-evangelization (sorry I don't have an equivalant word in english) tools. Temples are doing a lot of social service.

Quote:With 16 members disqualified by the Speaker on October 11 and the Bengaluru high court refusing to stay that ruling, only 208 MLAs (in the 224-member house) will be eligible to vote in the second trust vote on the October 14. The magic number is 105.



The Bharatiya Janata Party now has a strength of 106 (including the Speaker). The opposition consists of the Congress: 73, Janata Dal-Secular 28 and 1 independent.

Quote:The Karnataka government headed B S Yeddyurappa will face the trust vote to prove its majority in the state assembly on October 14, the BJP announced in New Delhi.



The decision was taken after a meeting of top state leaders and the BJP high command at the residence of senior leader L K Advani.



Meanwhile, the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular leaders are meeting in Bengaluru to chart out their next course of action

Quote:JD-S leader H D Kumaraswamy and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Tuesday met Governor H R Bharadwaj. The discussions between the two leaders and the governor went on for over 20 minutes. Although both leaders have refused to comment on the details of the meeting, sources say they were discussing the trust vote that the BJP government will face on October 14.



The core committees of both the JD-S and the Congress are also scheduled to meet later on Tuesday night.

Quote:The mood in the BJP changed shortly later when the High Court adjourned hearing in the disqualified legislators plea for quashing the Speaker's order to Oct 18.



The court reserved orders on the writ petition of 11 BJP MLAs but gave counsel for the other 5 disqualified Independents an opportunity to amend their petition.



The counsel for government latched on to a pleading by the counsel for Independents that their case was also similar to BJP MLAs and that they had "never left the party".



At this the counsel for Independents said it was a mistake and he would like to amend the petition.

Quote:Raipur, Oct 4 (IANS) Chhattisgarh's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled off an impressive victory Monday in the state assembly by-election from the Bhatgaon constitueny in Surguja district, handing over one of the worst defeats to arch rival Congress in recent years.



BJP candidate Rajni Tripathi won the seat by a margin of over 35,000 votes, defeating her nearest rival, Congress candidate U.S. Singhdeo. The poolls to the seat were held Oct 1 and there were 12 candidates in the fray.



The seat fell vacant following the death of the BJP's sitting legislator Ravi Shankar Tripathi, 55, in a car crash in April and the BJP fielded his widow while the Congress picked a member of the erstwhile royal family of Surguja as its candidate. The Bhatgaon constituency, some 400 km north of state capital Raipur in Surguja district, recorded over 75 percent votes in peaceful polling.



Buoyed by the victory, the BJP has described the win as the 'people's approval of our development policy'.



'People have reiterated faith in the BJP and has given a thumbs-up to the party to carry on the development policy and welfare schemes for poor and downtrodden people with more committment,' Chief Minister Raman Singh said as he reacted to the party's success.



The Congress, which had high hopes from the by-election, did not have much to say after the defeat.



State party president Dhanendra Sahu said: 'We will analyse in detail as to what went wrong.'



With the impressive victory, the BJP's strength in the 90-member state assembly has risen to 48 while the Congress remains on 39. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has two members.



The by-election to the Balod assembly constituency in Durg district is set to be held soon following the death of the BJP's sitting legislator Madanlal Sahu in August.

Quote:I request members to see the big picture here. The desperation has a real reason. UPA (not INC alone) is in minority in Rajyasabha. There is no pathway for them to even come near to manipulatable level. They can't keep buying or bullying SP, BSP etc. The utility of of CBI etc, are not sustainable. That is the real reason for this posch MLAs and forcefully occupy the opposition governments is going on.