Karnataka Speaker disqualifies 14 MLAs

Karnataka Legislative Assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar disqualified 14 MLAs - 11 from the Congress and three from the JD(S), here on Sunday. The disqualifications were based on the petitions filed by Congress and JD(S) Legislature Party leaders.

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Following the order, the number of disqualified MLAs has now brought down the strength of the house to 208.

The MLAs are Pratap Gouda Patil (Maski), B C Patil (Hirekerur), Shivaram Hebbar (Yellapur), S T Someshekhar (Yeshwantpur), Byrati Basavraj (K R Puram) Anand Singh (Vijayanagar - Bellary), R Roshan Baig (Shivajinagar), Muniratna (R R Nagar), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapur), MTB Nagraj (Hoskote) and Shrimant Patil (Kagawad) from the Congress, and A H Vishwanath (Hunsur), Narayan Gowda (K R Pete) and K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout).

They were all disqualified under the Anti-Defection Law. The order came two days after the Speaker had disqualified three MLAs - two MLAs from the Congress and one independent who had merged with the Congress. The three MLAs are expected to petition the Supreme Court tomorrow.

"Speaker's decision on disqualification comes in a hurry. We will move the Supreme Court," says AH Vishwanath, JD (S) MLA from Hunsur.

The resignations of these MLAs had resulted in the Congress-JD(S) coalition losing the trust vote recently and ended the 14-month-old government.