The Janata Dal (Secular) on Sunday suspended eight MLAs for violating the party’s whip and indulging in ‘cross-voting’ in the biennial election to the four Rajya Sabha seats from Karnataka on Saturday.
Eight legislators defied the party’s whip and cross voting in favour of retired IPS officer K.C. Ramamurthy, the third candidate of the Congress, instead of voting for JD(S) official nominee B.M. Farooq, who lost the contest.
JDS chief and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda convened a meeting of the party’s office-bearers at the Palace Grounds here and suspended eight MLAs.
Suspended legislators are B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan, N Cheluvaraswamy, H C Balakrishna, Akhanda Srinivasamurthy, Iqbal Ansari, K. Gopalaiah, Ramesh Bandisiddegowda and Bheema Naik.
Five JD (S) legislators (Zameer Ahmed Khan, H.C. Balakrishna, Akhanda Srinivasamurthy, N. Chaluvarayaswamy, Iqbal Ansari) had indulged in cross voting in Friday’s Legislative Council elections and supported the BJP’s second candidate Lehar Singh.
Though the JD-S has 40 lawmakers in the 224-member Legislative Assembly, Mr. Farooq polled only 33 votes, 12 short of the required 45 votes to win a seat in the upper house of Parliament. One independent had voted for Mr. Farooq.
While the ruling Congress got its first two candidates -- Oscar Fernandes and Jairam Ramesh -- winning comfortably with 46 and 47 voters, respectively, Mr Ramamurthy secured 52 votes, including 32 surplus votes from the party and 20 additional votes from rebel JD-S lawmakers and independents.
A candidate requires a minimum of 45 votes to win a Rajya Sabha seat from the state.
