BJP MLAs detained for staging demonstration outside Karnataka Assembly

Bengaluru: BJP MLAs, including former Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, were detained and taken to the Vidhana Soudha police station for staging a demonstration outside the Karnataka Assembly in protest against the suspension of 10 party legislators.

JD(S) second-in-command and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy too had briefly joined the BJP during the protest. Bommai termed the suspension ”illegal” and ”murder of democracy”. He alleged that the Siddaramaiah government has adopted a ”dictatorial” attitude and is trying to stifle the voice of the opposition. ”We will take the issue to the people”.

Ten BJP MLAs were suspended from the Karnataka Legislative Assembly for the remainder of the session by Speaker U T Khader for their ”indecent and disrespectful conduct” in the House on Wednesday.

The 10 MLAs are C N Ashwath Narayan, V Sunil Kumar, R Ashoka, Araga Jnanendra (all former Ministers), D Vedavyasa Kamath, Yashpal Suvarna, Dheeraj Muniraj, A Umanath Kotian, Arvind Bellad and Y Bharath Shetty.

The assembly session began on July three and is slated to end on July 21. The Speaker’s action came after the House witnessed chaotic scenes as some members of the BJP tore copies of bills and the agenda and threw them at the Chair, as they were upset over the Speaker’s decision to conduct the proceedings of the House without giving a lunch break.

This was amid the BJP’s protest against the Congress government for allegedly ”misusing” IAS officers for the meeting of opposition leaders from around the country that was held in Bengaluru in the past two days.