Siddaramaiah Requests Speaker Ramesh Kumar to Disqualify 4 Rebel Congress MLAs

Bengaluru: Pushed to the edge over the missing MLAs’ absence in the budget session so far, Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Monday moved a plea with the speaker Ramesh Kumar seeking to disqualify the four rebel MLAs.

Along with an 82-page complaint, the former Karnataka chief minister also submitted the show-cause notices and whips he had sent to the rebel MLAs earlier. Kumar assured him of appropriate action after going through the papers.

Ramesh Jarakiholi, Mahesh Kumatalli, B Nagendra and Umesh Jadhav are the leaders facing the heat of disqualification.

Siddaramaiah had issued a whip to all legislators to attend the CLP meeting without fail and had also warned that their absence would lead to serious disciplinary action. But four MLAs still remained absent from the meeting and did not adhere to the warning, following which Siddaramaiah issued a show-cause notice.

Although Jarakiholi, Kumatalli and Nagendra responded to the notice within a week, political pundits says it was just an act to buy time from getting disqualified. All four rebel MLAs maintained distance from the party cadres and reports suggested that they would submit their resignation to speaker during the budget session and join hands with the BJP.

Amid all these speculations, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Friday released an audio clip of an alleged conversation of state BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa to lure a JDS MLA to destabilise the coalition government in the state.

The Congress had then decided to crack the whip and initiate action against four rebel MLAs under the Anti-Defection law. Siddaramaiah was summoned by Rahul Gandhi to meet him in Delhi a day after the state budget. The sources told News18 that Rahul had given clear instructions to Siddaramaiah to seek disqualification of the rebels, after which, on Monday he submitted a complaint on behalf of the party.

If speaker Ramesh Kumar disqualifies the four MLAs, the strength of Congress comes down to 76 from 80. The JDS has 38 legislators. Together, they will have 114 legislators with them, while the magic number to run the government is 110. Still, the coalition government will be sufficient to run the show and BJP will remain with 104 MLAs and two independent candidates who are likely to be with them.