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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ED gets MHA sanction to prosecute Arvind Kejriwal in excise policy case
New Delhi (PTI): The Union Home Ministry has granted sanction to the Enforcement Directorate to prosecute former Delhi chief minister and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal in the excise policy linked money laundering case, officials said.
The federal agency has filed a chargesheet against the 56-year-old politician before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court here last year after arresting him in March.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has recently granted the required sanction to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for prosecuting Kejriwal under the anti-money laundering law in the Delhi excise policy case, officials said.
The development comes ahead of the Delhi Assembly on February 5.
Kejriwal has been made made an accused in his personal capacity as well as in the capacity of being the national convenor of his political party AAP.
The former chief minister was called the "kingpin and key conspirator" of the Delhi excise "scam" by the ED.
It was alleged that he acted in collusion with Delhi government minister, the AAP leaders and others.
The ED had earlier claimed that AAP, being a political party, is defined as an association or a body of individual citizens of India under the Representation of the People Act and hence it can be categorised as a "company" as contemplated under Section 70 of the PMLA.
As Kejriwal was "in-charge of and responsible" for the said company i.e. AAP during the time of offence, he and his party "shall be deemed guilty" of offences mentioned under the anti-money laundering law and liable to be prosecuted and punished, it had said.
The excise case pertains to alleged corruption and money laundering in formulating and executing the Delhi government's excise policy for 2021-22, which was later scrapped.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena had recommended a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities. Subsequently, the ED registered a case under the PMLA.
Taking cognisance of a CBI FIR lodged on August 17, 2022, the ED filed its money laundering case on August 22, 2022 to probe the alleged irregularities.
