Bangalore: Congress’s trusted troubleshooter DK Shivakumar met JD(S) chief HD Deve Gowda at his residence Sunday and tried to sort out differences in the coalition ministry in the wake of resignation of 13 MLAs Saturday.
In view of the dramatic turn of events, the state government seems to be on the edge which forced Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to cut short his US visit and return home to contain the crisis.
A circular has been issued by the Congress to all its MLAs to attend a Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting Tuesday convened by Siddaramaiah. Karnataka Congress in-charge KC Venugopal and Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao are expected to attend the meeting.
Meanwhile, Congress workers are holding a protest outside party office asking the Congress rebels to withdraw their resignations. “They’ve (JD-S) convened a meeting of party leaders. We’ll also call our party leaders and sort out this issue. I’m confident things will cool down immediately. In the interest of both parties we have to run government smoothly. I’m confident MLAs will come back,” Shivakumar was quoted as saying.
Of the 12 legislators who submitted their resignations to Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, nine were from the Congress and three from the JD(S). The legislators could not meet the Speaker and left their resignations with his aides in his office.
The strength of the ruling coalition in Karnataka has come down to 105, which is eight short of the half-way mark of 113.
To continue the coalition government, the allies are also planning to reshuffle the 34-member Cabinet ministries to accommodate some of the rebels by asking a few of the ministers to step down.
The attempts to contact rebel MLAs failed to yield results as 10 of the rebel MLAs flew to Mumbai and have since gone incommunicado. Emerging out of the meetings, senior leader Mallikarjun Kharge told reporters that the Bharatiya Janata Party was behind the revolt by the MLAs, as it was desperate to return to power although it lacked majority in the Assembly.
Kharge. also claimed that the rebels flew to Mumbai in a chartered aircraft owned by Rajiv Chandrashekhar, BJP’s Rajya Sabha member from the state.