IN TWO CAMPS: Former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah (left) and former Industries and Finance Minister P.G.R. Sinhdia speaking before the vote of confidence in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday. — Photos: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, who moved the motion of confidence in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, attributed to Providence his transition from a visitor to the House to Chief Minister.

"Purvajanmada punya" (blessings from a previous birth) is how Mr. Kumaraswamy described the turn of fortunes in the past three weeks. He hoped his run of luck will continue for the next 40 months, with the blessings of elders and veterans in the House and outside.

During the lively debate that ensued, there was never a dull moment as legislators, including former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Vatal Nagaraj, R.V. Deshpande and P.G.R. Sindhia, sparred and exchanged repartees.

When Mr. Sindhia was making the point that there was no illegality in removing Mr. Siddaramaiah as leader of the Janata Dal (S) Legislature Party, the latter interrupted him, saying: "How come it was not illegal? Is it because you were a party to it? And now are you saying it was not right to remove M.P. Prakash from the post because you were not a party to the decision?"

As the Janata Dal (S) Legislature Party did not issue a whip to its members, and Mr. Kumaraswamy expected them to vote as per their conscience, Mr. Sindhia said defying a whip would bar members from contesting elections for six years. Mr. Siddaramaiah said only a whip that is issued by the "legally elected" leader could be defied with such penalty, and not a whip from Mr. Kumaraswmy. Mr. Sindhia chose to end the argument by calling for a debate on the issue later.

Speaker Krishna's announcement allotting time for parties and members to address the House drew loud protests from former Speaker Ramesh Kumar (Congress), who said the Lok Sabha is not known to have such time limits.

After several members of the Opposition joined him, Mr. Krishna promised to consider their requests to refrain from setting time limits for their addresses.

`Betrayal'

R.V. Deshpande (Congress) accused the Janata Dal (S) leadership of having betrayed the party members by going in for an "unholy alliance with the BJP". His reference to the Speaker's decision on January 27 to recognise Mr. Kumaraswamy as the Janata Dal (S) Legislature Party leader drew an angry response from Mr. Krishna: "Your leader, (N.) Dharam Singh has already made his observations, why do you keep harping on it? I have acted according to the norms and the law."

M.C. Madhuswamy (Janata Dal-U) said the events of the past few weeks have shown that no legislator has a right to speak on ethics or morality. In 2004, the Congress refused to concede that the people's verdict was against it, but greed for power made it opt for an alliance which was unholy, he added.

He said he is disappointed and shattered by the manner in which the House was conducted on January 19 and January 27.

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