Everybody has contributed to the muck in Karnataka

The BJP is playing the victim, blaming the Congress, and JDS, for the Karnataka imbroglio. It would. Because, siding the law – that the Single Largest Party should be invited to form the government in a hung-house situation like in Karnataka – benefits it. In Goa and Manipur, another law or convention benefited it so it rejected the SLP option. In the process, other political parties like the Congress and JDS, the Governor’s office in Karnataka and the Supreme Court have dragged themselves on to the scene. Each in its own world, each as concerned about democracy, the muck remaining unchallenged.

Where did the Supreme Court go with the Congress’s midnight Karnataka case?:

What did the SC achieve by allowing Yeddy to take oath as CM? There was no urgency. The tenure of the previous assembly ends only on May 28. There are still more days to go. The SC said the oath-taking and the formation of the government is subject to the final outcome of the case before it. Then why not defer oath-taking till Friday when the SC meets again to hear the case ? Obviously, the SC decision defies logic and adds to political suspense and waste of time. By such actions, the apex court is opening itself to prospects of criticism (to put it mildly and kindly). Lastly, what was the urgency of the SC to hear the case late at night, disturbing everyone, if it never wanted to defer the oath-taking of Yeddy?

What if Yeddy has only 104 letters of support to show the SC? Will the SC ask him to step down as CM?:

So, SC gets copies of letters of support to Yeddy. They must be 104 I assume. The point is, what will the SC do with this letter? Will it be satisfied that 104 makes BJP the SLP and so the Governor is right? Or will it wonder why the governor did not pursue other options like post-poll alliance of Congress and JDS? Would such a question throw both the judiciary and the constitutional office of the governor into the vortex of a crisis? Or, to avoid that, will the SC simply dismiss Yeddy from office and ask the governor to call the post-poll combo? Will not that lead to another constitutional crisis? So, what can the SC do? I am a lay person and I feel that the SC can only do one thing without disrespecting the Constitution: It should clarify the order of preference of the options before a governor in case of a hung assembly. Which party/formation shoudl the govzernor call first in such a situation? The three options are (i) SLP (ii) prepoll alliance (iii) postpoll alliance. To rank the options, the SC will have to decide what is the most important objective of the governor's action. Is it to install a grouping which the governor feels CAN MUSTER SUPPORT to pass the floor test? Or, is it to install a grouping which HAS the majority to pass the floor test? It is common sense that in the case of a hung assembly, the prime objective of the governor is to ensure that the party/grouping he/she invites to form the government HAS THE REQUISITE NUMBERS to pas the floor test. In which case, the SC can only rank the three options in this order: (i) pre-poll alliance (ii) post-poll alliance (iii) president's rule. It will then be the end of the road for the SLP. Which is fine. Of course, it goes against the spirit of the people's mandate. But if enforced, then the people too will know that a hung vote won't work. That will be good for democracy and important, it will no longer allow political parties to play bullies after the counting day. But then, at the end of it all, the SC did not have to (i) waste midnight oil to hear this case since it did not order anything dramatic, (ii) allow Yeddy to take oath and play havoc with the state's economy from the word go as he has already done with farmers' loans, (iii) given a direction to stop the resort politics and instead asked the legislators to be present in person at their respective party headquarters till the court settled the case. It simply did nothing.

Yeddy does not bother about the decorum of a cabinet quorum on day one as CM:

Yeddy as CM waives farmers' loans. How did he do that? He called a cabinet meeting. Who attended it? Only him. Why? Because there are no ministers. Is a quorum required? The secretariat manual does not talk of a quorum, but a tradition or convention is that majority of the ministers has to be present. (On February 10, a cabinet meeting of Kerala to take some major decisions was not held because only six of the 19 ministers was present.) What is the strength of the council of ministers in Karnataka? The Constitution (91st Amendment) Act, 2003, which limits the size of all ministries in India, stipulates that the strength of a council of ministers should not exceed 15 per cent of the total number of members in the Lok Sabha (in case of the central government) or the relevant state assembly. With 224 members, K'taka should have 33.6 ministers. Assuming half of them are cabinet rank, there should be 15. So, you see, the bullies are already at work.

Yeddy has to pass speaker test before floor test:

The dilemma before Yeddy in case BJP's persuaders buy 12 MLAs: The first test for him is the election of the speaker of the K'taka assembly.
He does not have the numbers, even if Governor Vala strangely thought so! In case, Yeddy has persuaded the MLAs and is desperate to have a BJP person as a speaker, he will have to show his hand -- that is the persuaded MLAs will have to vote for his choice for speaker.
But then, the Cong and JDS would know who the Judas' are. What if they counter-“purchase” the trust even some of them before the floor test?
Then Yeddy has a problem. Unless the BJP buys the "loyalty" and fealty of the 12 MLAs, Yeddy will have to choose between a BJP speaker or himself remaining as CM? Needs a debate on this.

What is the Congress game, if at all? Of course it wants power, even if it has to share it for JDS, even if for a couple of years.:

IF the Congress and JDS were so intent on stopping Yeddy from becoming CM, they should protect their MLAs from poaching by the BJP. They know they will fail in that exercise. So they do the next best thing: Midnight drama. Wasting the time of the people and the courts. What did they achieve, other than some media time? Nothing. If they were really sincere about forming the government with JDS, they could have filed a petition in the SC long before the results or on counting day, asking the court to clarify on what is the descending sequence of options a governor has to follow among (a) SLP, (b) pre-poll alliance and (c)post-poll alliance. The question was, since the post-poll alliance was considered as the option by two governors in the recent past, should it be taken as the prime precedent in case of a hung assembly. It is a legitimate issue that merits clarification from the court. Such a move would have tied the Governor's hands. He would have had no option but to forward the issue to the President. Now, does the Congress think the SC will revoke its own order to allow Yeddy to take oath? That is the problem: the Congress is never willing to learn and its default status is to stage dramas. In the end, what happened? The BJP bullies its way to another illegal hold over another state. Even now, the Congress-JDS hopes that the SC can dismiss Yeddy and ask the governor to call it to form the government.

In the end:

The political parties, the elected MLAs, their leaders, the governor, the Supreme Court -- all of them in the last two days have ignored a small entity -- the common citizen of Karnataka who stood in a queue and exercised his or her franchise to further the cause of Indian democracy. What will this citizen do?