Yeddyurappa gets ready for cliffhanger trust vote
Bengaluru, May 19: The BJP government led by B.S. Yeddyurappa faces a crucial trust vote on Saturday in the Karnantaka Assembly that began its new session with MLAs taking oath with numbers stacked against the ruling party on its own.
Governor Vajubhai Vala convened the 15th Karnataka Assembly in the Vidhana Soudha here that began with the newly-elected legislators taking oath. Pro tem Speaker K.G. Bopaiah conducted the proceedings.
Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa was the first to take oath followed by Congress legislature party leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Janata Dal-Secular's (JD-S) legislature party leader H.D. Kumaraswamy.
Legislators of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress and JD-S were administered the oath in pairs starting with the BJP, followed by that of the Congress and JD-S as per the number of seats they all got in the bitterly fought May 12 election.
Among the prominent legislators present in the House were BJP leaders like former Deputy Chief Minister K.S. Eshwarappa, B. Sreeramulu, Congress legislators D.K. Shivakumar, R.V. Deshpande, M.B. Patil, Shamanuru Shivashankarappa, and JD-S lawmakers G.T. Devegowda and H.D.Revanna.
The oath-taking of all the legislators will be completed before 4 p.m. for Bopaiah to conduct a floor test in the House to ascertain if Yeddyurappa has majority in the hung Assembly, as directed by the Supreme Court on Friday.
If the opposition legislators insist on the division of votes, the pro tem Speaker will ask the members who are in favour of the motion to vote first and those against it soon after.
The May 12 election across the state in 222 constituencies of the 225-member assembly, including one nominated, threw up a hung House, with no party securing majority. The nominated member is yet to be decided and polls in two constituencies were deferred.
Yeddyurappa requires the 112-halfway mark to win the motion or one more than the half of the members present when the floor test is conducted in the House with an effective strength of 222.
Of the 222 seats, the BJP won 104, Congress 78, JD-S, 37 and one each by Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party (KPJP) and an Independent.
As the single largest party, the BJP is eight short of the 112-halfway mark in the House.
As Kumaraswamy won from both Channapatna and Ramanagaram segments, the party's effective strength in the House is 36 as he can cast only once.
Though the Governor directed Yeddyurappa to seek a vote of confidence on the floor of the House within 15 days from the date of assumption of office as the Chief Minister (May 17), a three-judge bench of the top court ordered the floor test on Saturday, rejecting his plea for a week's time to prove his majority.
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Another North Goa nightclub sealed; Kejriwal says corruption led to fire tragedy
Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
