The Karnataka Fiasco !!

Wow! What a day for Karnataka ! Whilst this time of the year is when the whole of Karnataka celebrates the joyous 9 days of Navaraatri in the lore of Lord Vishnu. But alas that the 4th day of the festivities had to see such lows and turmoil in the Karnataka assembly - a complete disgrace to the installed democracy and its basic fabric.

I was pleasantly shocked at the outcome of the no-confidence motion in which our CM Yeddy won and that too comfortably and through a voice vote. What was most descerning over the last week was the shuttling of all the MLA's from Bangalore to Goa Resort to Kochi and then to Chennai. In fact the Cong. MLAs were huddled into a resort near Pune so that they don't get horse traded.

Though I do not understand the anti-defection law very well, I am note sure how this applies to the independent MLA's who were disqualified, this meant that the house strength was reduced from 224 to 208 (16 rebel BJP and Independents) - the speaker went ahead and announced a voice vote and closed the matter in favour of Yeddy and the assembly was adjourned for the day. Heard that H D Kumarswamy the ex-CM of Karnataka offered each defecting MLA close to 50 cr to withdraw support to BJP govt - which Yeddy's men made a counter offer of 100 cr each.

It is true that Yeddy has ignored veteran politicians like Shankarlinge Gowda and others over much junior and non-incumbents - probably the reason why we are seeing such low politics in Karnataka.

H D Kumaraswamy and co headed towards the Governor's (aka Bharadwaj and close aide of the 10 Janpath) house to submit a memorandum. It was the funniest scenes I had witnessed on TV for a long time, H D Kumarswamy was in real hurry and was addressing the media personals from the bus window pane he was traveling to the Governors residence. I took a TV Grab - check it out !

Home TV Grab: Kumarswamy addressing from the Window pane of the bus - funny scenes indeed !!