Karnataka crisis: Bid to pacify rebels and save government

Bengaluru: Hectic parleys are underway to pacify a dozen Congress and Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) rebel legislators to withdraw their resignations and save the 13-month-old coalition government in Karnataka, an official said on Sunday.

“Senior leaders in both the parties are holding talks to address the concerns of the rebels and ensure they withdraw their resignations. However, they are unable to contact and convince them as about 10 of them flew to Mumbai on Saturday evening,” a Congress-JD-S spokesman told IANS here.

At the Congress office, party’s state unit in-charge K.C. Venugopal, has been discussing the grievances of the rebels with Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, state working President Eshwar Khandre and senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge.

“Venugopal spoke to senior rebel legislator Ramalinga Reddy, assured him to address his concerns and advised him to withdraw his resignation. Reddy has also been urged to contact the other rebels and convince them to withdraw their resignations,” the official said.

Nine Congress and three JD-S lawmakers submitted their resignations to Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar on Saturday, expressing lack of confidence in the coalition government leadership.

The nine Congress rebel MLAs are Pratapgauda Patil (Maski), B.C. Patil (Hirekerur), Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Shivram Hebbar (Yellapur) Mahesh Kumatahalli (Athani), Ramalinga Reddy (BTM Layout), S.T Somashekar (Yeshvantpur), Munirathna (RR Nagar) and S.N. Subba Reddy (KGF in Kolar).

The three rebel JD-S MLAs are A.H. Vishwanath (Hunsur), N. Narayana Gowda (K.R. Pete) and Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout).

Of the Congress rebels, Somashekar and Munirathna, loyalists of Siddaramaiah, want the latter to be made chief minister again. Both were ministers in the previous Congress government, Siddaramaiah headed from 2013 to 2018.

“In the JD-S, party supremo H.D. Deve Gowda held talks with the party’s newly appointed state President K.K. Kumaraswamy and PWD Minister H.D. Revanna at his residence to make rebels Gopalaiah and Narayana Gowda withdraw their resignations,” party spokesman Ramesh Babu told IANS.

Both the allies are waiting for the return of Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy by Sunday night from a week-long private visit to the US to explore a Cabinet reshuffle for inducting some of the rebels like Reddy and Patil by dropping a couple of Congress ministers.

The Speaker told reporters on Saturday that he would look into the resignations of the rebel legislators on Tuesday, ahead of the Monsoon session of the state legislature from July 12.

Though Jarkiholi had sent his resignation on July 1, it was not accepted by the Speaker, as it was faxed to his office, which is against the procedure.

Congress legislator Anand Singh from Vijayanagara segment had also resigned on July 1. As he personally handed over his resignation letter to the Speaker, his office acknowledged receiving it.

As the legislators could not meet the Speaker at his office in the state Secretariat, they met Governor Vajubhai Vala in Raj Bhavan and apprised him of the reasons for their resignation.

Published on: July 7, 2019 at 16:03 IST

IANS