Siddaramaiah elected Karnataka Congress legislature party leader

Bengaluru :  Ahead of the crucial floor test on Saturday in the Karnataka Assembly, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was on Friday elected as the Congress legislature party leader in Hyderabad, the party said.

“The party unanimously passed a resolution to elect Siddaramaiah as the Congress legislature party leader,” the statement said.

The Congress legislature party meeting was held at a star hotel in the Deccan city where its newly-elected lawmakers stayed after reaching earlier in the day from Bengaluru in chartered buses.

The Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) had shifted their newly-elected legislators to Hyderabad on late Thursday to prevent the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from poaching them for defection.

The legislators will be returning to Bengaluru before 11 a.m on Saturday, when the new assembly will be convened to enable them to take oath.

A floor test will be conducted at 4 p.m on Saturday on Supreme Court’s directive earlier in the day to ascertain if BJP Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa enjoys majority in the House.

As the May 12 election across the Karnataka in 222 constituencies of the 224-member assembly, including one nominated, threw up a hung House, with no party securing majority, Yeddyurappa requires the 112-halfway mark to win the confidence motion or one more than the half of the members present in the House when the floor test is conducted.

Of the 222 seats, the BJP won 104, Congress 78, JD-S 37, and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party (KPJP) one each, apart from an Independent.

Published on: May 18, 2018 at 22:32 IST

IANS