Two more Congress MLAs quit Karnataka Assembly membership

BENGALURU: Two more MLAs from the Congress - Housing Minister MTB Nagaraj and K Sudhakar - have resigned their membership of the Karnataka Assembly, taking the number of dissidents in the ruling coalition to 16.
The two put in their papers at the chamber of Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar on Wednesday afternoon even as senior Congress leaders including Ghulam Nabi Azad were camping in capital Bengaluru to try and convince some of the rebels to take back their resignations.

After giving his resignation, Nagaraj told reporters that he was "fed up" with politics and wished to retire from public life. "I don't want any ministerial position or anything. I am fed up with politics," PTI quoted him as saying.

Speaker Kumar later confirmed that both nagaraj and Sudhakar have submitted their resignation letters.

Nagaraj, who represents Hoskote Assembly segment in Bengaluru Rural was the housing minister in the coalition government. Sudhakar, a lawmaker from Chikkaballapur Assembly seat , was recently made chairman of the state-run Karnataka Pollution Control Board, a post equivalent to a cabinet minister.

The Kumaraswamy government in the state was already on the brink of collapse after 14 MLAs of ruling Congress and the JD(S) tendered their resignations to the office of the speaker over the last few days.

The earlier resignations are yet to be accepted by the Speaker. While eight of them were asked to send in their resignations again in "a proper format", the others were asked to meet the Speaker and convince him the resignations were not made under pressure.

Of the 16 MLAs who have resigned so far, 13 are from Congress and three from JD(S).

The ruling coalition faces the threat of losing majority in the Assembly if the resignations are accepted as its current tally is 116 (Congress-78, JD(S)-37 and BSP-1 ) in the 224-member House.

With the support of the two independents, who Monday resigned from the ministry, the BJP has 107 MLAs in the 224-member House, where the half-way mark is 113. If the resignations of the 16 MLAs are accepted, the coalition's tally will be reduced to 100.