Voters will teach defectors a lesson: Khader

People will teach a befitting lesson to the disqualified MLAs contesting the December 5 by- elections to the Karnataka assembly on BJP ticket, former Minister and Mangaluru MLA U T Khader said on Wednesday.

Addressing reporters here, he said the people have generally welcomed the Supreme Court ruling upholding the disqualification of the MLAs. However, the BJP has given ticket to thosewho have been adjudged as disqualified.

The voters are intelligent and they have been given an opportunity by the Supreme Court to give their verdict in the people's court, the Congress MLA said.

The nation is waiting to watch the lesson voters will teach the defectors, Khader said.

The bypolls in the state were necessitated after the resignation and subsequent disqualification of the 17 legislators by then Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar in July after the fall of the Congress-JD(S) government that paved the way for the BJP to come to power.

Though the Speaker had disqualified the MLAs till the end of the term of the present assembly in 2023, the Supreme Court had last week allowed them to contest the bypolls following which they had joined the BJP.

Sixteen of the disqualified MLAs have joined BJP and 13 of them have been given tickets to contest the by-polls.