A day after the Supreme Court paved the way for them to contest the 5 December Assembly bypolls in Karnataka, 16 disqualified Congress-JD(S) legislators on Thursday joined the BJP in Bengaluru.
According to Deccan Herald, however, R Roshan Baig, a disqualified Congress legislator from Shivajinagar, was not inducted into the party on Thursday. Even Hoskote MLA MTB Nagaraj was not inducted. While Nagaraj had already joined the BJP, the saffron party to shied away from admitting to Baig's induction due to the ongoing investigation into the Monetary Advisory scam. Baig, it can be recalled, was detained by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the scam at Kempegowda International Airport in July this year.
Interestingly Baig, a seven-time legislator, on Wednesday claimed he will be joining BJP along with the other legislators. The Supreme Court on Wednesday had upheld the disqualification of 17 Congress-JD(S) MLAs in Karnataka by the then Assembly speaker KR Ramesh Kumar but paved the way for them to contest the by-polls.
While upholding their disqualification, the apex court set aside the portion of the orders by the then speaker by which the legislators were disqualified till the end of the current Assembly's term in 2023.
The disqualified Congress MLAs who joined BJP are, Pratap Gowda Patil (Maski), BC Patil (Hirekerur), Shivram Hebbar (Yellapur), ST Somashekar (Yeshwanthpur), Byrati Basavaraj (KR Puram), Anand Singh (Vijayanagara), N Munirathna (RR Nagar), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapura), MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote), Shrimant Patil (Kagwad), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Mahesh Kumatalli (Athani) and R Shankar (Ranibennur). JD(S) members who joined the party are, K Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout), AH Vishwanath (Hunsur) and KC Narayana Gowda (KR Pet).
