Bangalore, Jan 29: In a double jolt to B S Yeddyurappa, Assembly Speaker today put on hold resignations of 12 ruling BJP MLAs loyal to him, even as Karnataka Janata Party's former founder removed the former Chief Minister from the party's Presidentship.
The rebel MLAs identified with Yeddyurappa submitted their resignation letters in person to Speaker K G Bopaiah, quitting their assembly membership.
Bopaiah, who had a one-on-one meeting with the MLAs to ascertain whether they were doing so on their own, later put on hold the resignations, a move by Yeddyurappa to push the Jagadish Shettar government into a crisis ahead of the budget session beginning on February 4.
Yeddyurappa slammed Bopaiah's action, terming it as a "murder of democracy" and demanded his resignation.
"The BJP hatched the conspiracy to disqualify 12 MLAs supporting me only yesterday and Bopaiah is acting like a puppet at the hands of the ruling party", he charged.
The MLAs had tried to submit their resignations to Bopaiah on Saturday, but he was not in station, an issue over which they cried foul and submitted copies of the letters to Governor H R Bharadwaj.
In a counter offensive, two BJP legislators had petitioned the Speaker yesterday, seeking disqualification of the 12 rebel MLAs.
In another jolt, KJP founder president Padmanabha Prasanna has sent a communication to the Election Commission, stating that the party's emergency executive meeting on Dec 20, 2012 had decided to revoke (withdraw) the decision to nominate Yeddyurappa as state unit president.
After breaking ranks with BJP, Yeddyurappa had taken over as KJP president at a rally at Haveri in North Karnataka on Dec 9 2012. KJP had been in existence earlier but became prominent after Yeddyurappa walked into it and formally launched it at the Haveri rally.
Prasanna in his Jan 3 letter to the EC, released to the press here, said KJP's emergency executive committee has decided that he would retain the post as president. Rubbishing Prasanna's move to dislodge him from the party post, Yeddyurappa said the former had already informed EC on giving up the post and that he had taken over as President.
"Those who have lost their mental balance can do anything", Yeddyurappa said.
In a swift retaliation, KJP expelled Prasanna from the party's primary membership.
The 13 would also quit the Bharatiya Janata Party soon to join the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), which Yeddyurappa formed and is leading after he left the BJP and the assembly Nov 30.
The resignations are part of a plan by Yeddyurappa to try to prevent Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar from presenting the budget for 2013-14 in the assembly on Feb 8. The assembly's 10-day budget session is scheduled to begin Feb 4.
Bopaiah is expected to take some time to decide on the quit letters, though these legislators are demanding their immediate acceptance. Among the 13 are three who were ministers in the Shettar cabinet. While C.M. Udasi and Shobha Karandlaje quit as ministers last Wednesday, Sunil Vallyapure had resigned last month. Udasi handled public works department, Karandlaje energy, and Vallyapure infrastructure development.
The BJP, in an apparent strategy to delay the acceptance, has made two of its assembly members petition Bopaiah to disqualify 12 of these legislators for "anti-party" activities as they had participated in a public rally to formally launch the KJP and took part in other meetings of that party.
The petition was filed Monday. The resignation of the 13 legislators from the assembly would not threaten the survival of the Shettar ministry as the ruling party would still have 105 members, including the speaker, in the 225-member assembly with two vacancies.
The BJP also has the support of one of the seven Independent members who is a cabinet minister.
The Congress has 71 members and the Janata Dal-Secular 26. One is a nominated member.
The resignations were to be submitted to Bopaiah last Wednesday but could not be done as he went out of Bangalore the previous day. Upset that he was not present in spite of being informed Tuesday about the plan to meet him the next day to submit the resignations, the legislators had met and complained about the development to Governor H.R. Bhardwaj.
They had also given Bhardwaj copies of their resignation letters and urged him to intervene for their immediate acceptance by the speaker. After keeping quiet for three days on his whereabouts, Bopaiah said late Friday that he had been to Nepal on a "private visit".
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