Siddaramaiah to address Cong legislators in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will address a meeting of newly-elected Congress party legislators, who have been camping here, this evening, said JD(S) MLC Basavaraj.

Amid a power struggle in neighbouring Karnataka, some of the newly-elected JD(S) and Congress MLAs from the state arrived in the city this morning and were put up in two hotels.

Basavaraj said as many as 36 legislators belonging to the JD(S) and 77 of the Congress are currently camping in city hotels.

“Siddaramaiah is coming to Hyderabad. He will address legislators on the future course of action. We may go back to Bengaluru tonight,” Basavaraj told PTI.

“We are trying for flight tickets. If we get we will fly. But getting tickets for flight appears to be difficult,” he said when asked how they were planning to return to Bengaluru.

Congress leaders in Telangana, however, are tight-lipped about the developments.

The Supreme Court today ordered that a floor test be held in the Karnataka assembly at 4 PM tomorrow to confirm whether newly-appointed BJP Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa enjoys a majority in the state.

Political observers felt Hyderabad had been chosen for keeping the MLAs together owing to the rapport that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had with JD(S) chief and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.

Rao had recently met Gowda at the latter’s residence before the Karnataka polls.

The Telangana chief minister had appealed to Telugu people living in the neighbouring state to vote for the JD(S).

The JD(S) last night alleged that chartered flights that were scheduled to carry its legislators along with those of the Congress from Bangalore to Kochi were denied permission by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation at the last minute.

However, a Civil Aviation Ministry official had said that DGCA permission was not required for charter operations within India.

Fearing poaching of their legislators by BJP, the Congress and JD(S) had earlier decided to fly them out of Karnataka.

BJP legislature party leader B S Yeddyurappa was yesterday sworn-in as the chief minister of Karnataka.

The BJP has 104 MLAs in the House. The Congress won 78 seats, while the JD(S) was victorious in 37 constituencies.

Polling was held in 222 of the state’s 224 seats, for which results were declared on May 15, delivering a hung House.