Karnataka Rajya Sabha: Congress hides MLAs in Mumbai hotel

The Congress, which on Monday accused the BJP of encouraging corruption and horse-trading in the biennial election to the Rajya Sabha in UP by supporting an Independent candidate, Preeti Mahapatra, itself spirited away Karnataka’s Independent MLAs and MLAs from small parties to a high-end hotel in Mumbai late Sunday evening.

In a move that’s being widely criticised in the party ranks due to the unnecessary speculation that money did indeed change hands to woo the Independents to their side, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah’s three confidants (MLAs S.T. Somashekar, Byrathi Basavaraj and Muniratna Naidu, known as “SBM”), flew out with five Independent MLAs — Mankalu Vaidya, Satish Shail, P. Rajeev, Subba Reddy and Ashok Kheny.

The flight of the MLAs follows pressure on the State Election Commission from the Opposition BJP and Janata Dal (S) to call off the crucial Rajya Sabha polls that the Siddaramaiah government would have won hands down, bolstering the Congress’ numbers in the Upper House of Parliament. Party sources said fear of cross-voting not only forced the CM’s camp to shift the MLAs to a plush hotel in Mumbai, but would also involve taking them to a Shani temple where they will be made to take a vow. The CM’s camp, which risked fielding a third candidate, has had to take steps to ensure that the third candidate wins comfortably.

First the “SBM” troika devised a strategy of keeping all MLAs under surveillance. But since this would attract too much attention, they decided to fly them out until polling day. The same three leaders had orchestrated a similar operation and succeeded in wresting BBMP from the BJP by herding all its BBMP corporators as well as JD(S) corporators to Kerala about six months ago.

A senior Congress leader told this newspaper that the plan was executed by the troika after they met over dinner in a plush hotel last week to discuss strategy after the alleged cash-for-votes sting operation by two national news channels.