Bengaluru (Karnataka): Amid the political upheaval in the state, BJP MLAs reached Ramada resort from the Assembly here on Friday evening. The state unit of the BJP has booked 30 rooms for two days at the facility.
Both the Congress and the BJP have decided to move their legislators to different hotels after the Assembly proceedings on Friday. While Congress shifted its MLAs to Taj Yeshwantpur, JD(S) MLAs reached Prestige Golfshire Club in the city. The dissident MLAs of Congress and JD(S) came back to Bengaluru on Thursday to meet Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar, as per the Supreme Court directions but flew back to Mumbai at night ignoring the whip issued by the Congress-JDS coalition leader.
On the other hand, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Friday sought permission for facing the floor test during the ongoing session of the Assembly. For the last few days, the dissident Congress-JDS MLAs had been staying at Sofitel Hotel in Mumbai. Following which, Congress leader DK Shivakumar had gone there to pacify them but to no avail. Ever since the Karnataka coalition plunged into crisis, the Congress has repeatedly accused the BJP of trying to topple the government, an allegation denied by the BJP.
The ten rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs had moved the top court, seeking a direction to Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar to accept their resignation and to not proceed with the applications for their disqualification from the House. After hearing their plea, the Supreme Court today ordered a status quo until July 16. A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Deepak Gupta will again hear the matter on Tuesday.
The order on status quo was given after hearing counsels--Mukul Rohtagi for the rebel MLAs and Abhishek Manu Singhvi for Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar. The bench had on Thursday directed the Speaker to meet the rebel MLAs who were asked to give their resignations afresh in person. The Speaker met them and took their resignations but did not take any decision saying he has to follow procedures and satisfy himself whether they were genuine and voluntary. The 13-month old coalition government is starting a collapse following the resignation of 16 of the Congress and JD(S) MLAs who cited a range of issue from allegedly being sidelined to declined ministerial berth in the government.
