3 of 11 MLAs who resigned say will stay if Siddaramaiah is made CM

Bengaluru: Three out of eleven MLAs who, submitted their resignations on Saturday demanded that if Congress leader Siddaramaiah is made the chief minister of Karnataka, they would take back their resignation.

The three MLAs who made this demand are Somashekar, Basavaraj, and Shivaram.

Eleven MLAs of the ruling JD(S)-Congress alliance in Karnataka submitted their resignation at the Speaker’s office on Saturday, putting a question mark on the survival of the 13-month-old government.

The crisis, which had been brewing ever since the BJP swept the parliamentary polls in the state, deepened as eight MLAs of the Congress and three of the JD(S) reached the Speaker’s office to put in their papers and later met Governor Vajubhai Vala at the Raj Bhavan.

If their resignation is accepted, the wobbly ruling coalition will lose the majority in the 224-member Assembly.

Assembly Speaker Ramesh Kumar, who was not in his office when the legislators went there, confirmed the resignations and said “whether the government will fall or survive” would be decided “in the Assembly”.

As a last-ditch bid, Congress’s “troubleshooter” and Minister D K Shivakumar met the legislators and tried to convince them.

Earlier this week, another Congress MLA, Anand Singh, submitted his resignation to the Speaker.