Kalaburagi: State Congress President Dinesh Gundurao and Working President Eshwar Khandre while welcoming the Supreme Court order which disqualified the dissident MLAs but allowed them to contest the bypolls, demanded the resignation of Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on moral grounds. Speaking to the media here, both leaders felt Mr Yediyurappa had lost the moral authority to continue in office as the order had vindicated their stand that the disqualified legislators were enticed to resign to ensure the fall of the coalition government headed by H.D. Kumaraswamy. “This is an illegal government which has no majority and was formed through nefarious ways. Hence Mr Yediyurappa should immediately resign”, Mr Rao and Mr Khandre demanded.
“By disqualifying the dissident legislators, the SC has upheld the decision of Speaker Ramesh Kumar on the issue.
This proves that these legislators hatched a conspiracy with a malafide intention to ensure the fall of the coalition government”, they asserted. The Congress leaders demanded that the BJP should not field any of the disqualified MLAs as candidates in the bypolls. “If they are given the tickets, it will prove that the saffron party was behind the resignations of these legislators. The Union Home Minister(Amit Shah) and the Karnataka CM are the architects of Operation Kamala. If the BJP believes in morality, Mr Yediyurappa should immediately resign”, they demanded.
When asked if the SC order was not a victory for the dissident legislators as they have been allowed to contest in the byelections, Mr Rao, contended that the main issue was not whether they should be allowed to contest or not.
“The crux of the issue is the observation by the court that the betrayal of the party is an immoral act. This is a major setback for the legislators, who left our party”, he added. To a query both Mr Rao and Mr Khandre observed that the the light of the Karnataka political developments, the anti-defection law needed to be amended and the party would fight for it at the national level.”Mr Rajiv Gandhi fought hard for putting an end to the Aya Ram-Gaya Ram culture. The loopholes in the Act need to be plugged by evolving a consensus on the issue”, they observed.
