Congress urges SC to take on record audio clip of CM Yediyurappa in MLAs disqualification case

New Delhi, Nov 04: The Opposition in Karnataka urged the Supreme Court hearing the MLA disqualification case to take on record a fresh audio clip in which he admitted that the decision of the 17 JD-S and Congress MLAs to resign, which led to the fall of HD Kumaraswamy-led government in July, was taken by the Central leadership of the BJP.

A bench headed by Justice N V Ramana said it will consult Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi for constituting the bench tomorrow to consider the fresh material given by the Karnataka Congress.

A day after a video clip about this surfaced, Congress and JD-S accused the BJP of having misused government agencies for allegedly poaching their MLAs in the state.

Congress general secretary organisation K C Venugopal alleged, "We kept saying that under the leadership of Prime Minister and Amit Shah, BJP is misusing all the government agencies like Enforcement Directorate, IB and CBI to poach the opposition MLAs and to destablise the opposition-led governments."

"Now, there is a concrete proof and it is very shocking that he is telling, Yediyuruppa is telling that the Supreme Court may give relief to the defectors and they can contest elections," he claimed.

The Karnataka Congress has demanded dismissal of Shah, who is Home Minister, from the Union Cabinet since the 'operation lotus' was carried out at his behest.

"We already decided whatever content is there (in that shared video), that we are going to file before the court," Kumaraswamy told reporters in Bangaluru.

He was referring to the case filed by the disqualified MLAs who have approached the Supreme Court against their disqualification by the then speaker K R Ramesh Kumar.

In the video, Yediyurappa heard expressing anguish against leaders at a recent party meeting in Hubballi over their opposition to giving tickets to disqualified Congress-JD(S) MLAs for the December 5 assembly bypolls in 15 assembly constituencies had surfaced on Friday.

Kumaraswamy had resigned after losing a trust vote, which paved the way for the BJP-led government in the state under B S Yediyurappa.