State News And Discussion - 3

[Guest]

One more thing guys and gals here:



You all know SC's direction via S.R.Bommai case and that is perfectily used by the speaker. On top of that one read the following SC judgement in case of Maharastra:



http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/...rpart.html

The Karnataka assembly speaker K.G. Bopaiah's decision to disqualify 16 rebel MLAs including 11 from BJP under the provisions of anti-defection law was inspired from a ruling given by then Maharashtra assembly speaker Arun Gujrathi in 2002.



The Maharashtra BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde played an important role in sending copies of Gujrathi's ruling to the Karnataka BJP on Sunday night in an attempt to save the government.



Gujrathi had disqualified nine rebel MLAs of Congress-NCP for showing distrust in the government. His act had saved then Vilasrao Deshmukh government. He had ruled that if an MLA of a ruling party gives a letter to the speaker of the assembly expressing distrust in the government it can be assumed as defection from the party. Hence he can be disqualified under the provisions of anti defection law.



In Maharashtra, nine MLAs of ruling Congress-NCP had rebelled against then Vilasrao Deshmukh government in 2002. The Shiv Sena-BJP had claimed that the rebel MLAs were with them. A MLA Desmond Yates appointed by the Governor as an Anglo Indian too had supported the Sena-BJP. The Congress had taken objection to Yates' support to Sena-BJP by saying that he was a Congress member and had demanded to disqualify him.



In his ruling, Gujrathi had stated that though Yates was appointed to the assembly as an Anglo Indian, he was a Congress member. So his act of joining hands with Sena-BJP was a violation of the anti defection law. Gujrathi disqualified not only Yates but the nine Congress-NCP rebel MLAs too.



The Sena-BJP had challenged Gujrathi's ruling in the Supreme Court. However, the SC dismissed their petition by saying that only speaker of an assembly can take a decision on disqualification of members of the House.



Tawde told INDIA TODAY that the copies of Gujrathi's 47-page ruling were faxed to Karnataka BJP on Sunday night. "I talked to B.S. Yeddyurappa and informed him about Gujrathi's ruling. The Congress led UPA government will not dare to impose President's rule in Karnataka as the party itself had laid the precedence in a matter of disqualifying the members in Maharashtra," he said.

Destabilizing a government using rebel-MLAs is almost coming to an end. Other than sound bites I will not expect any major upheaval. Yeddi survives for now but he has an uphill tasks ahead.