Supreme Court hearing the MLA disqualification case has been requested by the Karnataka Congress on Monday to take on record a fresh audio clip in which Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa is purportedly referring to rebel MLAs, in which he indicated that the rebellion of 17 Congress and JD(S) rebels in July was orchestrated by BJP president Amit Shah.

A bench headed by Justice NV Ramana said it will consult Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi for constituting the bench tomorrow to consider the fresh material given by the Karnataka Congress.

A purported audio clip of Yediyurappa expressing anguish against leaders at a recent party meeting in Hubballi over their opposition to giving tickets to disqualified Congress-JD(S) MLAs for the December 5 assembly by-polls in 15 assembly constituencies had surfaced on Friday last.

In the audio, he is purportedly saying that the rebel Congress JD(S) MLAs, who were later disqualified, were kept in Mumbai during the final days of the coalition government under BJP national President Amit Shah’s watch.

The MLAs had resigned from the Assembly in July in a bid to topple the Congress-JD(S) government in the state and facilitate the formation of a Yediyurappa-led BJP government with a narrow majority of five seats. They were later disqualified from the House by the Speaker.

He had purportedly hit out at party leaders for lack of support in “saving” the BJP government and not recognizing their “sacrifice”, behind party coming to power. The top court had on October 25 reserved verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the disqualification of 17 Karnataka MLAs before the trust vote moved by the previous HD Kumaraswamy government.

BSY says in the audio, “The way people have spoken today, it does not seem like there is a desire to save the government. You know that the decision to obtain the support of these 17 MLAs was not a decision taken by Yediyurappa alone. The national president of the party (Amit Shah) himself supported the move and the rebels were kept in Mumbai for two-and-a-half months.”

“We would have been in opposition for three-and-a-half years but we have been brought to power by the rebels who resigned and approached the Supreme Court to seek acceptance of their resignations… ’’ he said in the clip. “I am hurt and I did not expect this from you… it is good the party president is present here… let the central leadership decide.”