JULY 21, 2019 • THE WEEK 37The BJP has 107 seats, while the rul-
ing combine has come down to 101.
The coalition leadership is desperate-
ly trying to woo back the rebels, who
have moved out to a Mumbai hotel.
None of the senior Congress leaders,
including the party’s famous trouble-
shooter D.K. Shivakumar, have so far
managed to mollify them, although
Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar’s deci-
sion to “examine” each resignation
individually has given a breather to
the distraught coalition.
The spate of resignations start-
ed with the Congress MLA from
Vijayanagar, Anand Singh, quitting
on July 1, followed by Gokak MLA
Ramesh Jarkiholi. Other Congress
MLAs to resign were Pratap Gowda
Patil, B.C. Patil, Mahesh Kumathalli,
Shivaram Hebbar, Ramalinga Reddy,
S.T. Somashekhar, Byrathi Basavraj,
Munirathna, Roshan Baig, K. Sud-
hakar and M.T.B. Nagaraj. Three
JD(S) MLAs—Narayan Gowda, K.
Gopalaiah and H. Vishwanath —have
put in their papers.
The timing of the resignations,
when Kumaraswamy was away in
the US and state Congress president
Dinesh Gundu Rao was on a Euro-
pean trip, raised suspicions of a polit-
ical coup orchestrated by the BJP,
which has tried to poach coalition
MLAs several times in the past.
The speaker has so far given ap-
pointments to only eight MLAs who
have resigned. He said eight others,
who did not submit their resigna-
tions in the prescribed format, would
have to tender their resignations
afresh.
The Congress has appealed to its
members to come back or face action
under the anti-defection law. “Our
MLAs have been trapped by the BJP,”
said former chief minister Siddara-
Legal experts as well as BJP leaders
are unhappy about the speaker’s
decision to examine each resignation
individually, calling it a “delaying tac-
tic”. “There is no question of rejecting
the resignation letters,” said BJP MLA
Basavaraj Bommai. “It is only a futile
attempt by the Congress and the
JD(S) to bypass the Constitution to
stay in power.” Senior advocate K.V.
Dhananjaya said the speaker only
had to verify whether the resigna-
tions were given under duress. “The
move to examine the resignations
without any sense of urgency smacks
of mischief,” he said.
The BJP said the crisis was caused
by troubles within the Congress.
“You have to keep your house in
order rather than blame the BJP,” said
state BJP president and former chief
minister B.S. Yeddyurappa. A BJP
delegation led by Yeddyurappa met
Governor Vajubhai Vala on July 10,
seeking his intervention to resolve
the crisis.
The rebels blamed the crisis on
the manner in which the coalition
was being run. Some are angry about
being kept out of the cabinet, while
some are unhappy about the lack of
coordination between the Con-
gress and the JD(S). Many Congress
leaders believe that the coalition was
imposed on the state leaders by the
high command, to send a signal that
the Congress would be an “amicable”
alliance partner ahead of the Lok
Sabha polls. But after the alliance
suffered a major debacle in the Lok
Sabha elections, winning just two of
28 seats, many of them are not in-
clined to continue the arrangement
as they feel it endangers their polit-
ical survival. They believe that the
Congress is accruing anti-incumben-
cy, while reaping little benefit from
being a part of the ruling coalition.
Resigned JD(S) leader Vishwanath
said fellow Kuruba Siddaramaiah,
who heads the alliance coordination
committee, was responsible for the
“failure”. “The coalition experimentThe timing of the
resignations, when
Kumaraswamy was
away in the US and
state Congress
president Dinesh
Gundu Rao was on
a European trip,
raised suspicions of
a political coup.maiah. “We urge them to come back.
We will induct them into the cabinet,
based on merit,” he said. All minis-
ters except the chief minister have
already resigned.
Senior Congress leaders including
Ghulam Nabi Azad, Ahmed Patel,
Anand Sharma, P. Chidambaram,
Motilal Vora, Jyotiraditya Scindia and
Randeep Surjewala held meetings to
discuss the crisis. Former Congress
president Rahul Gandhi, mother
Sonia and sister Priyanka stayed
away from these meetings. Subse-
quently, Congress general secretaries
Mallikarjun Kharge and K.C. Venu-
gopal rushed to Karnataka. It was,
however, felt that the response was
not particularly swift, and this was
blamed on the leadership vacuum at
the centre.
The JD(S), which has moved its
MLAs to a resort in Nandi Hills near
Bengaluru, has given an ultimatum
to the Congress to bring its rebels
back. Gundu Rao, meanwhile, has
petitioned the speaker to disqualify
the Congress rebels, except veteran
leader Ramalinga Reddy. The rebels,
however, say they have quit only as
MLAs, but not from the Congress.MISSION INTERRUPTED
Karnataka Congress leader D.K. Shivaku-
mar being arrested by the Mumbai Police