Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi is likely to retain his ministerial status with the BJP leader election as a Member of Legislative Council on Monday now becoming a mere formality. This as the only rival candidate for his MLC election unofficially walked out of the race, according to multiple reports.
Former Congress leader BR Anil Kumar supported by a section of JD(S) leaders was to give Savadi a contest but a lack of consensus among the Congress leadership and paucity of numbers paved his walkout. However since he failed to officially withdraw his candidature by February 10, an official election will still be held.
Savadi in all likelihood will take up the seat vacated by outgoing Congress member Rizwan Arshad who had won the recently conducted byepolls from Shivajinagar constituency in Bengaluru.
"He will win without any effort and there will be no change in his position," S Prakash, spokesperson of the BJP told TNM.
The leader from north Karnataka who was sworn in as the Deputy CM and holds the portfolio of Transport had to be elected in the upper house of the state’s legislature before February 19 as every minister has to be a member of the House within six months of swearing-in. He had incidentally lost the Assembly elections held in 2018 at the hands of then Congress and now BJP MLA Mahesh Kumathalli.
The Dy CM’s another claim to fame was he had resigned as a minister for watching porn on his mobile phone in the Assembly in 2012. In that contentious incident in February 2012, Laxman was caught by cameramen inside the Assembly watching a pornographic video with the then Women and Child Development Minister CC Patil on the mobile handset of fellow MLA Krishna Palemar.
While Laxman and CC Patil claimed that they were watching footage of a rave party held in Udupi and not a pornographic clip, they resigned within a week to prevent embarrassment to the ruling BJP.