Congress expels 14 rebel Karnataka lawmakers

Bengaluru: The Congress on Tuesday expelled the 14 rebel MLAs from Karnataka who were responsible for bringing down the party’s coalition government in the state.

All the MLAs, who resigned from the state legislature, had abstained from voting that led to the defeat of the Congress-JD(S) government in the trust vote.

The then Karnataka Assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar disqualified 11 Congress legislators — Pratap Gowda Patil, B C Patil, Shivram Hebbar, S T Somashekar, Byrati Basavaraj, Anand Singh, Roshan Baig, Munirathna, K Sudhakar and MTB Nagaraj and Shrimant Patil — on Sunday.

Three other rebel MLAs — Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumatalli and Shankar — were disqualified on Thursday.

The Congress-JD(S) coalition government headed by H D Kumaraswamy crumbled under the weight of a rebellion by a big chunk of its lawmakers, 20 of whom were absent for the voting that led to the defeat of its trust vote.

The AICC has approved the proposal received from PCC President, Karnataka regarding the expulsion of the MLAs, a party statement said, giving the names of all the 14 MLAs.