Vishweshwar Kageri is new Speaker of Karnataka Legislative Assembly

Bengaluru, July 31: Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri has been elected as the new Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

He filed his nomination papers for the election to the post of Speaker on Tuesday. He was accompanied by Chief Minister of Karnataka, B S Yediyurappa.

Hegde, is a six time MLA and has served as the Minister for Primary Education in the previous BJP government in Karnataka. He represented the Ankola constituency for three terms. Following the delimitation process, he shifted to Sirsi and the won the seat thrice in a row.

It may be recalled that after Yediyurappa won the trust vote on Monday, Ramesh Kumar quit as the Speaker. Defending his decision to disqualify 17 rebel MLAS, K R Ramesh Kumar, rued that the 10th Schedule of the Constitution dealing with the anti-defection law failed to achieve the intended goals and stressed for a relook into it .

Kumar, whose tenure as speaker spanned for 14 months and four days, said electoral reforms were the need of the hour.

"The root-cause of corruption in public life in the country is electoral system. There is a need for electoral reforms.

Speaking about eradicating corruption without electoral reforms will only be a hollow intellectual talk without any commitment," Kumar said.

He delivered his final speech in the assembly as speaker after the three-day old BJP government headed by B S Yediyurappa proved its majority in the truncated state assembly winning the confidence motion by a voice vote.