Doomsday for Cong-JD(S) regime as 12 MLAs resign

Karnataka’s political drama reached its endgame as 12 legislators from the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition tendered their resignation on Saturday, spelling doom for the H D Kumaraswamy regime.

In all, 13 MLAs — 10 Congress and three JD(S) — have now resigned. This includes Congress’ Anand Singh who put in his papers earlier this week. More MLAs are speculated to resign in the coming days.

FOLLOW THE LATEST DEVELOPMENT HERE: Karnataka LIVE | Ramalinga Reddy resigns, Cong-JDS govt in danger?

If Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar accepts the resignation of the 13 MLAs, the 119-member Congress-JD(S) coalition will lose its majority in a 224-member Assembly where the halfway mark is 113.

The coalition has been grappling with dissent with the sword of uncertainty hanging over its head for the past one year.

The resignation saga comes ahead of the Monsoon Session of the legislature, which is scheduled to begin on July 12.

Surprisingly, senior Congressman Ramalinga Reddy resigned along with four other Bengaluru MLAs — S T Somashekar, Byrathi Basavaraj, Muniratna of the Congress and K Gopalaiah of the JD(S). Reddy, a seven-time MLA, said he was pained to resign. A ministerial aspirant, Reddy was disgruntled ever since the coalition came to power. Recently, he had attacked the Congress leadership for “neglecting” seniors.

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy was in transit from Newark (US) to Bengaluru when the drama unfolded, while Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah scrambled to deal with the resignation blitz.

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“Each one of us has requested the Speaker in writing to accept our resignation,” senior JD(S) leader H Vishwanath told reporters outside Raj Bhavan, flanked by other MLAs.

“The reason for this tough decision is that the coalition government has failed in meeting the aspirations of the people.

There’s no coordination and MLAs have not been taken into confidence. People have huge expectations, but the coalition failed to meet them. Not just that, but the fact that MLAs weren’t taken into confidence has hurt us very much,” Vishwanath
said.

“Our decision is against the direction in which this government is going and the neglect it has meted out. We have resigned on our own volition,” he said.

Before submitting a copy of their resignation to Governor Vajubhai R Vala, the MLAs tendered their resignation to the Speaker’s office in Vidhana Soudha.
Vishwanath stopped short of naming Kumaraswamy as the reason for their disgruntlement.

“Those running the government are responsible. It’s the CM...who else is running this government?”

Asked if their resignation was due to BJP’s Operation Lotus (poaching of MLAs), Vishwanath curtly denied it.

“We have nothing to do with the BJP. There’s no operation here. We are all seniors. We can’t be subjected to any operation.”