Trust vote, election of Speaker Friday

Bengaluru: Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy will face the floor test in the Legislative Assembly on Friday, two days after being sworn in to office.

Official sources said the new Speaker would be elected on the same day ahead of the trust vote. As announced by top Congress leaders, senior legislator and former minister K.R. Ramesh Kumar will be elected the Speaker by the coalition while the deputy speaker will be chosen from among JD(S) legislators on the same day.

The 15th Karnataka Assembly has a strength of 221 MLAs, with the ruling coalition in a comfortable majority in the House with 115 legislators and having the support of two Independe-nt MLAs. The BJP has 104 MLAs. Three seats are still lying vacant. Elections to the Jay-anagar and R.R. Nagar Assembly constituencies are yet to be held while Mr Kumaraswa-my has quit from the Ramanagara seat while retaining the Channapatna seat.