Karnataka Trust Vote: Supreme Court Rejects BJP’s Devious ‘Secret

The Supreme Court on Friday turned down Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa’s request for a secret ballot after the top court ordered a floor test in the Karnataka Assembly at 4 PM tomorrow. A secret ballot would make it convenient for individual MLAs to defy a party whip and cast their vote in favour of a rival party.

The nature of the request itself casts a shadow on the BJP’s strategy for Saturday when the newly elected assembly meets to decide if Yeddyurappa, sworn in only yesterday following a controversial decision by governor Vajubhai Bala, has the backing of at least 112 MLAs needed to form a government.

The BJP has 104 MLAs in the 222-strong assembly and needs to secure the backing of at least eight additional MLAs for the Yeddyurappa government to survive. The post-poll alliance of the Congress-JD(S) is comfortably placed on paper, with Congress’s 78 and JD(S)’s 38 MLAs adding up 116—four more than the simple majority mark.

Political observers in Karnataka say the mining barons of Bellary—the Reddy brothers, two of who have been elected MLAs, and B. Sriramulu, an MLA close aide of the Reddys—may flex their financial might to get opposition MLAs to switch sides. The Congress-JD(S) alliance’s CM candidate HD Kumaraswamy has already said that some of his party’s MLAs had been offered Rs 100 crore each and Cabinet berths in the BJP government as a price to betray the alliance. Kumaraswamy has also alleged that the Modi government at the Centre has used the Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax Department to pressure the opposition MLAs into backing the BJP.

The Congress and the JD(S), meanwhile, have taken extraordinary precautions to protect their flock from any extraneous advances that the BJP may make. The alliance shipped out its 116 MLAs in two buses that rolled out of Bengaluru around 12.15am on Friday headed for Hyderabad.

NDTV reported that over an hour later, some lawmakers shifted to a third bus, a sleeper, for a more comfortable ride.

Karnataka Trust Vote: Supreme Court Rejects BJP’s Devious ‘Secret Ballot’ Ploy

Secret ballot would have made it easier to influence Cong-JD(S) MLAs