Jagadish Shettar is new Karnataka assembly speaker

Senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Jagadish Shettar, was elected as the speaker of the new Karnataka legislative assembly on Thursday. Shettar was elected unopposed as both the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular with 80 and 28 seats respectively decided against fielding a candidate for the post of speaker.

The new assembly's proceedings commenced with 24 legislators being sworn in by the pro-tem speaker. These lawmakers could not be sworn-in on Wednesday.

The election to the post of speaker was conducted through a voice vote. Shettar will be in charge of the house when his party seeks the trust vote on Friday. Governor Rameshwar Thakur is expected to render the special address at noon, following which the trust vote will take place.

Sources in the BJP say they will be able to sail through comfortably on Friday. However, they are not taking any chances at the moment and keeping a close watch on the movements of the six independents.

The BJP had emerged as the single largest party with 110 seats in the 224-member assembly. The party had fallen short of the magical number by three seats.

However, two days after the results were announced, the BJP managed to rope in all the six independent candidates The BJP's tally in the assembly now stands at 116.