Bangalore: A day after the Supreme Court paved the way for them to contest the December 5 Assembly by-polls in Karnataka, the 16 disqualified Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) legislators joined the BJP here Thursday, and most of them are likely to get nominated.
BJP aims to win a majority of the 15 constituencies where by-polls will be held. The saffron party is likely to field most of disqualified MLAs candidates, and the indication to this effect came directly from Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa. He addressed disqualified legislators as ‘future MLAs and Ministers’, while welcoming them into the party.
Yediyurappa, along with the state chief Nalin Kumar Kateel and national geseral Secretary in charge of Karnataka, P Muralidhar Rao were among those who welcomed them into the party fold at the state BJP headquarters here.
It should be mentioned here that the Supreme Court had upheld Wednesday the disqualification of 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs in Karnataka by the then Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar but paved the way for them to contest the by-polls.
However, R Roshan Baig, one of the disqualified Congress legislators (Shivajinagar constituency), was not inducted into the BJP. Party sources cited ‘reservations’ expressed by the leadership over Baig, who is facing inquiry in the IMA ponzi scam, among the reasons for his non-induction.
Interestingly, Baig, a seven-time legislator, had claimed Wednesday he will be joining BJP along with the other legislators.
According to top party sources, BJP is likely to field former corporator from Ulsoor, M Saravana from Shivajinagar as the candidate. Saravana too has confirme dabout his candidature.
“It is because of the sacrifice of these 17 Congress-JD(S) legislators and they quitting as MLAs, some even as Minister, I have been able to take oath as the Chief Minister,” Yediyurappa said.
“We will hundred per cent win 15 out of 15 seats, let there be no doubt, I want to assure this to those joining the party… My greetings to former MLAs, who are also the future MLAs and Ministers,” the Karnataka chief minister added.
The disqualified Congress MLAs who joined BJP are: Pratap Gowda Patil (Maski), BC Patil (Hirekerur), ShivramHebbar (Yellapur), ST Somashekar (Yeshwanthpur), ByratiBasavaraj (KR Puram), Anand Singh (Vijayanagara), N Munirathna (R R Nagar), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapura), MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote), Shrimant Patil (Kagwad), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Mahesh Kumatalli (Athani) and R Shankar (Ranibennur).
The JD(S) members who joined the saffron party were: K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout), AH Vishwanath (Hunsur) and KC NarayanaGowda (K R Pet).
Agencies