Two MLAs of the Congress Party in Karnataka, Pratap Gowda Patil and Anand Singh have missed the roll-call for taking oath have been tracked to Goldfinch hotel in Bangalore.
A team of police has been dispatched to the hotel to ‘rescue’ the MLAs who are reportedly ‘being held captive’.
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Both have missed their roll call for swearing in at in the Assembly today.
Patil’s name was called today at around 12 PM by interim speaker Bopaiah, but the MLA did not turn up, and that of Anand Singh, a mining business man, shortly after.
The move doesn’t come as a total surprise to the Congress Party as both have been showing signs of vacillating for the last 48 hours.
There is still the possibility that they could turn up at a later time and ask to be sworn in, in which case the speaker will oblige them.
In all, three MLAs are yet to make it into the assembly house, where the speaker is administering the oath of office to the newly elected MLAs.
One of the missing MLAs is Somasekhar Reddy, one of the ‘Reddy Barons’.
Patil was formerly with the BJP.
He was elected as an MLA for the first time in 2008. Patil joined Yeddyurappa when the former CM split from the BJP and floated his own party.
[polldaddy poll=10008827] The MLA was brought into politics by Sriramulu and Manohar Maski of the BJP. The two leaders are expected to have played a crucial role in ensuring that he doesn’t turn up for voting.
Under anti-defection rules, any MLA who votes against his party’s direction on a confidence motion will be disqualified.
However, an MLA can fail to turn up for the voting and avoid being disqualified.
Patil and another MLA Anand Singh were found to be missing from the Congress groupings soon after elections.