Karnataka imbroglio

July 26, 2019 11:21 pm | Updated 11:21 pm IST

 

The proposal, by K.R. Ramesh Kumar, Speaker of Karnataka Legislative Assembly, to include ‘opinion of voters’ as a factor to take into account, before deciding on ‘resignations by Members’, is worth discussing (“Karnataka Speaker disqualifies three rebel Congress MLAs,” July 26). However, voters cannot insist on a particular person to be their representative, against the person’s own concurrence. Ultimately, resigning must be one’s personal right. Alternatively, Mr. Ramesh Kumar’s suggestion can also be interpreted as an allusion to possibly giving the voters the right to recall elected representatives.

Nevertheless, some improvements to the rules governing defections and disqualifications are needed. MLAs/MPs can be assumed to have the people’s mandate only to follow their party’s policies and programmes. But their right to subscribe to other ideologies, policies and programmes can be allowed on the sole condition that they resign and seek a fresh mandate before crossing over. If any Member violates this requirement, the Speaker should have the right to disqualify him/her.

P.R.V. Raja,

Pandalam

H.D. Kumaraswamy never had the mandate to rule Karnataka. He was the leader of the Janata Dal (Secular), a party which finished third in the Assembly elections. The parliamentary poll results were a further affirmation that Congress-JD(S) combine didn’t have the mandate. Under the circumstances, it was understandable that so many of coalition MLAs raised a banner of revolt. People of Karnataka suffered for one month as there was no government and governance was on an autopilot mode. No one outside Mr. Kumaraswamy’s core support base will mourn his exit.

R. Sivakumar,

Chennai

Disgust gives way to anger as we observe the disgraceful behaviour of the elected representatives in Karnataka. Not just these unprincipled and selfish politicians, the electorate should also take the blame for these shameful scenes. Just like in Rajasthan High Court, the appellation ‘My Lord’ has been dispensed with, it is high time the appellation ‘Honourable’ is dropped while addressing our MLAs and MPs as it is a misnomer in most of the cases.

S. Rajagopalan,

Chennai

 

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