On a day the 12 rebel legislators, holed up in a Mumbai hotel, reiterated that they would not return to Bengaluru to attend the legislature session, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday appealed to them to come back to save the government from “evil forces”, who were trying to subvert democracy.
Mr. Kumaraswamy, in a statement issued on the eve of his confidence motion scheduled to come up before the Assembly for voting, said: “Let us sit together and discuss all issues, including your problems, if any, and arrive at a solution to save this democratically elected government from the evil forces, which are trying shake the very foundation of democracy by misusing their political influence.”
“I would like to appeal to such MLAs who have gone away from us to please attend the legislature session and narrate how the BJP took them away forcibly. I request them to explain on the floor of the House how the BJP sabotaged the democratic edifice and destroyed its sanctity.”
Further, he said: “It is a matter of immense pain and disgust that the BJP has not only taken Karnataka’s political scenario to a new low, but also set a new benchmark in the country for immoral politics. The BJP has made a mockery of democracy by taking away several MLAs from from ruling coalition forcibly.”
Amidst all these developments, which are a result of the sole ambition to capture power through immoral and illegal ways, he said: “The BJP has been demanding that I must resign immediately and has even got Raj Bhavan to set deadlines for putting the confidence motion into vote.”
Maintaining that he was not clinging on to power, the Chief Minister said his intention of seeking time for debate on trust vote was to let the entire country know how the BJP, which talked of morality, was trying to subvert the very principles of democracy as well as the Constitution.
