One of the rebels A.H. Vishwanath, whose disqualification has been upheld, told media that all the 17 rebels welcomed the Supreme Court’s order. “We are all politicians and contesting elections is important for us. We are happy that the Supreme Court has allowed us to recontest elections. It was a conspiracy by the then assembly speaker, Congress and JD(S) to keep us out of politics for a long time. Supreme Court has defeated that conspiracy,” he said.
When quizzed on Supreme Court upholding their disqualification, he said there were many nuances in the judgement that he could comment only after reading the full judgement.
BJP State president Nalin Kumar Kateel said the party’s core committee would meet on Wednesday evening where the party’s next course of action would be decided.
The rebels carefully avoided to state from which party they would contest the bypolls. “All of us will sit together and take a collective call on which party to join. But the people have seen what has happened, how we brought down an anti people government. I am confident that the people will re-elect us,” said another rebel B.C. Patil.
“I welcome the Supreme Court verdict,” said Dinesh Gundu Rao, Congress State president. “The hand of BJP in toppling the coalition government is now clear.The involvement of B.S. Yediyurappa and Amit Shah is now proved.If BJP has any morality left, they should not give tickets to these disqualified MLAs to contest.”
Chief Minister Yediyurappa welcomed it and said that it had “exposed the conspiracy” of the Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah and the then Speaker Ramesh Kumar. Avoiding questions on fielding the disqualified MLAs, he said an appropriate decision will be taken after a meeting with them.
BJP national general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao tweeted that decision to allow the disqualified MLAs to contest the bypoll is a “welcome step. It is not about politics, it is about constitutional rights which we all have to welcome”.
