On the 19th of July, the two major opposition parties in Karnataka, BJP and JD(S), jointly gave a notice seeking a no-confidence motion against the Assembly Speaker UT Khader. The notice was jointly signed by both the BJP and JD(S) MLAs including Former Chief Ministers Basavaraj Bommai and H D Kumaraswamy.
According to the notice, the opposition leaders claimed that the Speaker has lost the trust of the House.
The notice read, “As the Speaker who has been elected by all the members of Karnataka Assembly, has lost the trust of the House, to remove him from the post, we request for an opportunity to move the motion as per rule 169 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.”
This move comes after the suspension of 10 BJP MLAs. Speaker Khader suspended them for the rest of the assembly session citing “disrespectful conduct”. Later, the police detained BJP MLAs, including former CM Basavaraj Bommai, who had staged a protest outside the assembly building.
The suspended MLAs include Former Ministers Dr. CN Ashwath Narayan, V Sunil Kumar, R Ashoka, and Araga Jnanendra. Other suspended MLAs are D Vedavyasa Kamath, Yashpal Suvarna, Dheeraj Muniraj, A Umanath Kotian, Arvind Bellad, and Y Bharath Shetty.
Earlier, the opposition members from BJP and JD(S) staged a protest from the well of the House. They alleged that the ruling party, Congress was “misusing” IAS officers for their political interests. They claimed that around 30 IAS officers were assigned to the venue of the two-day unity meeting of Opposition parties in Bengaluru which ended on the 18th of July, a day earlier.
Reportedly, some MLAs tore copies of bills and agenda and threw them at the Chair. It is alleged that some MLAs were upset by the Speaker’s decision to conduct the proceedings without allowing a lunch break.
Following the incident, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil moved the appeal to suspend the MLAs from the rest of the session. After conducting voting on the appeal, the Speaker suspended the MLAs. Speaker Kader said, “I am naming them (the 10 MLAs) because of their indecent and disrespectful conduct”.
Earlier in the day, five bills were passed without any discussion, despite protests by BJP and JD(S) members from the well of the House. Notably, the current assembly session began on the 3rd of July and is scheduled to continue until the 21st of July.