Honour your commitment, complete trust vote process by Monday: Speaker

Bengaluru : Karnataka Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar on Monday appealed to the 14-month-old Congress-JDS coalition government to honour their commitment and complete the trust vote process by Monday itself.

Soon after the house resumed, the speaker said, "The debate should start now. Everybody is watching us. Please don't make me a scapegoat. Let us reach our goal," stressing that the process should reach finality Monday.

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy had moved the confidence motion on Thursday to decide the fate of the Congress-JDS government wracked by a rebellion by a section of its MLAs threatening its survival.

The debate on confidence motion stretched till Friday with the ruling coalition missing two deadlines set by the Governor Vajubhai Vala.

The proceedings were then adjourned till Monday on a promise by the government that they will prove majority by the end of the day.

"It will not bring respect to the House or to me," the Speaker made his position clear, implying that the trust vote should not be delayed further.

"We are in public life. People are watching. In the name of discussion, if an opinion is created that we are wasting time, it won't be right on my part or anybody else's," he said.

The Speaker also gave a ruling that a Legislature Party leader has the right to issue a whip.

"Issuing whip is your right. Following them is left to the MLAs. If any complaint comes to me, I will follow rules and take a decision," Kumar told Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah who had raised a point of order on the issue of whip in the light of the Supreme Court order last week.