The Hindu : Curtains for the 11th Legislative Assembly

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 13, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Curtains for the 11th Legislative Assembly

By A. Jayaram

BANGALORE, FEB. 12. The curtain has virtually been brought down on the 11th Karnataka Legislative Assembly though its dissolution is yet to take place.

The members of the House posed for a group photograph in front of the flight of steps of the Vidhana Soudha this morning along with the Ministers. The photograph will soon adorn the pillars of the Assembly lobby along with the group photographs of the Assemblies of the past.

Today's picture will form part of the history of the legislative body, the oldest in the country dating back to 1881.

However, the Raj Bhavan is still awaiting word from the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, on the issue of dissolution. The meeting of the State Cabinet scheduled for this morning did not take place.

The reasons given were that the Chief Secretary, K.K. Misra, who is also the Cabinet Secretary, was away in New Delhi attending a meeting convened by the Election Commission, that the photo session got delayed, and that there was inadequate number of subjects for discussion. Today's meeting was expected to take a decision on dissolution.

The Cabinet is expected to meet on Monday to decide on early termination of the five-year tenure of the members. In the natural course, the term of the House will end on October 24, 2004.

The members of the Assembly adopted the four-month vote-on-account sought by the Government, though not the full Budget which has been presented to the House.

Though the Chief Minister dwelt at length on the benefits the Budget would confer on the people of the State, it will not be binding on the next Government. That the Chief Minister has presented a full Budget unlike the interim budget of the NDA Government at the Centre might be an indicator of the confidence in the Congress party of retaining power.

With an obvious eye on the elections, Mr. Krishna went beyond the Budget proposals and announcements to please the people.

One of the major announcements was that regarding the setting up of a new Pay Commission for State government employees to be headed by a retired Judge of the High Court, M.P. Chinnappa.

There were also concessions for farmers — a reduced (8.5 per cent) rate of interest on farm credit and a reduction of the deposit under the "Own Your Transformer Scheme" for irrigation pumpset owners from Rs. 35,000 to Rs. 25,000.

Though many of the members of the Assembly were attired in their best for the formal photograph, their apprehensions about their membership coming to an end was visible in their wan smiles.

The House will be meeting on Friday and it should be the last sitting of the present Assembly.

Once the much-speculated early dissolution of the House comes through, it will be the fifth Assembly not to complete the full term of five years.

The previous early dissolutions were those of the Fourth Assembly (1967-71), seventh (1983-85), eighth (1985-89), and the tenth (1994-99).

Even as the term of the present House comes to an end, one seat remained vacant and a byelection could not be held in Karwar constituency after the MLA, Vasanth Asnotikar, was shot dead.

His BJP rival in the 1999 elections, Prabhakar Rane, had filed an election petition in the High Court, which is yet to be disposed of.

The House witnessed five byelections, necessitated by the death of sitting members in four cases (Kagwad, Narasimharaja, Vemgal, and Hungund) and the unseating of a member by the Supreme Court (Humnabad).

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