Five disqualified Cong MLAs return to Bengaluru

Bengaluru: A day after Karnataka Speaker disqualified fourteen rebel MLAs, five rebel Congress MLAs arrived in Bengaluru from Mumbai in the early hours of Monday.

The five MLAs — Munirathnam Naidu, Byrathi Basavaraj, MTB Nagaraj, ST Somashekar and Shivaram Hebbar arrived at the Kempegowda International Airport amid tight security, ahead of the trust vote in the Assembly which will be held later in the day.

Karnataka assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar on Sunday disqualified 14 more rebel MLAs under the anti-defection act till the end of the current term of the assembly in 2023.

The speaker’s ruling came a day ahead of Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa moving the confidence motion in the assembly to prove his majority, after assuming office on Friday.

Of the lawmakers who faced the action, 11 are from the Congress and three from JDS.

“I have used my judicial conscience,” said Kumar, who had earlier disqualified three Congress rebel MLAs on Thursday and said he would make the pronouncement of his decision in the remaining cases in a “couple of days.”

The Congress and JDS, whose government collapsed on Tuesday last after a rebellion by a section of their MLAs, had petitioned the Speaker to disqualify their errant members.