The Supreme Court’s judgment of Wednesday upheld the disqualification of the 14 Congress and three Janata Dal (Secular) MLAs by the Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar in July till 2023, the end of the current Assembly’s term. At the same time, it allowed them to contest the 5 December by-elections to the Assembly as it was beyond the remit of the Speaker to dictate terms of the disqualification.
The BJP’s ‘Operation Lotus’ to bring down the Congress-JD(S) alliance government of HD Kumaraswamy with the promise of power and pelf to defectors was public knowledge. Aware of the motive of the resignation of the 17 MLAs, Speaker Ramesh, under the provision of Article 190 of the Constitution which enables him to ascertain their genuineness, disqualified them.
BJP leader BS Yediyurappa had assured these MLAs of his party’s nomination to re-contest their Assembly seats and ministerial berths in the new government. The Supreme Court held that disqualification relates back to the date when the act of defection takes place.
However, a member disqualified under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution shall be subjected to sanctions provided under Articles 75(1B), 164 (1B) and 361B of the Constitution which provides for a bar from being appointed as a minister or from holding any remunerative political post from the date of disqualification till the date on which the term of his office would expire or if he is re-elected to the legislature, whoever is earlier.
The Speaker, being a constitutional functionary, is presumed to have adjudicated with the highest traditions of constitutionalism. However, in light of the constitutional mandate, the Speaker is not empowered to disqualify any member till the end of the term. Political parties are indulging in horse trading and in corrupt practices. In these circumstances, Parliament must consider strengthening certain aspects of the Tenth Schedule so that such undemocratic practices are discouraged.
The judgment is a pyrrhic victory for Yediyurappa. He now has the complex task of winning at least eight of the 15 seats for which polling takes place on 5 December. The BJP at present has only 105 members in the 225-member Assembly. R Roshan Baig, the only disqualified MLA to be left in the lurch, was denied entry into the BJP for reasons not far to seek. All others were admitted to the BJP and given party nomination to contest their vacated seats. Originally elected on the Congress or the JD(S) ticket, they face the wrath of the electorate for their tainted image.
Yediyurappa has been campaigning for them as future ministers. It is now established beyond a shadow of doubt that the democratically elected Kumaraswamy government was brought down by massive inducements, threats and allurements in total disregard of every basic tenet of public propriety. The BJP, which preaches corruptionfree governance and Gandhian moral values, must walk the talk to be convincing. December 5 will reveal what the voter thinks of the defecting MLAs.