Face of Nation : Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri was Wednesday elected as the new Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. This comes two days after the BJP proved its majority on the floor of the House, and former Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar resigned.
Kageri, a senior BJP leader, was the only one to file his nomination papers for the post on Tuesday. He was accompanied by Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and leaders Govind Karjol, R Ashok, Jagadish Shettar, K S Eshwarappa and S Suresh Kumar. With the majority in the House, it is a convention for the BJP to elect a Speaker. “We received only one nomination that was of Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri,” an official in the Karnataka Assembly secretariat was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
On Monday, the BJP sailed through the trust vote in the Assembly after the Speaker disqualified 11 Congress and three JD(S) MLAs. This effectively brought down the majority mark to 105, equivalent to the current strength of 105 of the BJP, which also enjoyed the support of an Independent MLA. Congress has 66 members, while JD(S) has 34 in the House.
Three days after the Congress-JD(S) coalition government lost a floor test in the House 99-105, Yediyurappa was sworn-in as the chief minister of Karnataka for the fourth time,
