Plea in SC seeking immediate trust vote in Karnataka deferred till Wednesday

A plea by two rebel MLAs, seeking immediate trust vote in Karnataka Assembly, will be heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. In the plea, the MLAs have alleged that Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JDS government has lost majority and was trying to stall the trust vote.

The plea, seeking trust vote in Karnataka Assembly on immediate basis, will be heard by a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.

Senior advocate and Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who is representing Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar in the case, said that the arguments in the case would be concluded by Wednesday and trust vote may follow.

The Supreme Court observed that Karnataka Speaker "is optimistic that the trust vote shall be held today in the course of the day".

Notably, another plea has been filed in the top court by Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and Congress state unit president Dinesh Gundu Rao. The plea seeks an explanation on the Supreme Court order issued on July 17.

The plea says that the apex court order allowing rebel MLAs to skip Assembly proceedings is violative of the Constitutional right of a political party to issue whip. It also questions the move by Governor Vajubhai Vala to set a deadline for trust vote.

In its July 17 order, the Supreme Court had said that there was no compulsion on the rebel MLAs to attend Assembly proceedings. The top court had also asked Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to take a decision on the resignations of the rebel MLAs.

This comes even as the ruling alliance of Congress-JDS and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lawmakers continued to trade charges in Karnataka Assembly. While the BJP reiterated that the government was trying to stall the trust vote, the Congress-JDS demanded that the opposition party must first assure that none of the rebel MLAs would be given ministerial berths if the BJP forms government.

Two deadlines set by Karnataka Governor for the trust vote has already expired.