Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy braces for a trust vote, as crisis deepens

• The Supreme Court directed the 10 rebellious Congress MLAs to speak to Karnataka assembly speaker at 6 pm yesterday.
  
• As many as 16 MLAs — including 6 from Janata Dal (JD) — had offered resignation to the speaker who didn't accept the resignations.
  
• The MLAs accused assembly speaker Ramesh Kumar for not accepting their resignation.

Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said that he is ready for a trust vote in Assembly, as the crisis over his government deepens.

As many as 10 MLAs from the Congress resigned from the government on July 1 which weakened the Congress and Janata Dal (S) coalition government.

The MLAs had stayed holed up in Mumbai for days since the mass resignations as the crisis to Mumbai. A few silver lines of resolution came on Thursday after the Supreme Court directed the dissenting MLAs to appear before the Assembly on Thursday evening.

The Apex court had also asked the Karnataka Police to provide protection to the MLAs — Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkhiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, BC Patil, ST Somashekar, Arbail Sivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, K Gopalaiah, HD Vishwanath and Narayan Gowda.

The All India Congress Committee (AICC) had also registered a complaint against the rebel MLAs for not abiding by the party rules and staying illegally at a hotel in Mumbai. The situation also heated up when Congress party leaders like Milind Deora and Shikumar were stopped from entering the hotel premises. Later, a Section 144 which bans the assembly of more than four people, was also imposed on Wednesday in Powai area where the rebel MPs were staying.

The MLAs had accused that the Speaker Ramesh Kumar was not accepting their resignations, even when they were in accordance with the Indian constitution.

As many as 16 MLAs — including 6 from Janata Dal (JD) — too had tendered resignations. This comes after the resignation by Congress MLA R Roshan Baig, who resigned on June 10.

"I don't understand what is the urgency for BJP. There have been instances where such impasses have taken months to be resolved. Whatever the pressure, I am not going to move an inch away from the law and procedure," Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar told The Hindu.

“We are now 15 MLAs who want to resign but there is no formal acceptance by Speaker. Idea is not to defect, but resign so that we can go back to public and contest,” said Mukul Rohatagi, former Attorney General appealed to the bench on behalf of the resigned MLAs to a Supreme Court bench which includes Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi.