Bengaluru: Senior Congress leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Kapil Sibal were rushed to Bengaluru on Tuesday at the behest of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi in an effort to keep the Congress-JD(S) government intact on a day when the crisis facing the coalition government deepened as another Congress MLA quit and the party sought the Assembly Speaker’s intervention in disqualifying its rebel legislators even as it accused the BJP of using money power to lure its members.
Former Congress minister R. Roshan Baig quit, raising the number of legislators who resigned to 14, but Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar’s entry into the picture with the ann-ouncement that resignation letters of only five MLAs were in the approved format, gave leaders of the coalition a breather and time to send out fresh feelers to the rebels.
Congress leaders are reportedly planning to meet and convince some of the MLAs not to push for acceptance of their resignations. At least seven of the 10 who have been holed up in Mumbai are heading to Bengaluru on Wednesday. The rebel MLAs will arrive at the Vidhana Soudha at around 10 am and meet the Speaker with whom they have sought an appointment
They include Siddar-amaiah loyalists S.T. Somashekar and Bhai-rathi Basavaraj as well as JD(S)’s A.H. Vish-wanath, and Congress rebels Ramesh Jarki-holi, Mahesh Kumata-lli, B.C. Patil and Shivaram Hebbar.
The eighth legislator could be Mr Ramalinga Reddy, who has stayed on in Bengaluru even as his daughter Sow-mya Reddy, Jayanagar MLA, has expressed her unease at the treatment meted out to her father.
Ms Reddy as well Ms Anjali Nimbalkar, Khanapur, MLA and three others are reportedly being wooed by the BJP, sources said.
Meanwhile, Mr Azad, one of the architects of the coalition arrangement following a fractured mandate in May 2018, is scheduled to meet JD (S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda to end the impasse.
The duo arrived hours after Mr Siddaramaiah threw caution to the winds and threatened to disqualify the rebel MLAs. He followed it up with a complaint against eight legislators submitted to Mr Ramesh Kumar under the anti-defection law. Interestingly, the party spared former ministers Ramalinga Reddy and Mr Roushan Baig.
