Congress’s Shivakumar takes Mumbai trip to pacify rebel MLAs camping in hotel

In a last-ditch effort to save the Karnataka, Congress troubleshooter D K Shivakumar arrived in Mumbai to meet the dissident MLAs.

D K Shivakumar took a special flight to Mumbai early Wednesday morning to meet the Karnataka MLAs who continue to camp at the Mumbai hotel after they tendered their resignations three days back.

On MLAs writing to Mumbai police seeking security, D K Shivakumar said, "Let Mumbai Police or any other force be deployed. Let them do their duty. We have come to meet our friends. We were born together in politics. We will die together in politics. They are our partymen. We have come to meet them."

Karnataka Minister DK Shivakumar, in #Mumbai: Let Mumbai Police or any other force be deployed. Let them do their duty. We've come to meet our friends. We were born together in politics, we will die together in politics. They are our party men. We have come to meet them. pic.twitter.com/F7fCh7i6kh ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2019

Mumbai Police has said D K Shivakumar will not be allowed inside the hotel.

The rebel MLAs, meanwhile, maintain that they will not meet the Congress-JD(S) leaders.

Ten rebel MLAs from the Congress-JD(S) wrote to the Mumbai police commissioner expressing fears of a threat to their lives during visits of Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and Congress leader D K Shivakumar.

The letter signed by 10 MLAs said they have heard that Kumaraswamy , Shivkumar and others were going to storm the hotel premises they are staying in and they feel threatened by this.

The letter stated that the MLAs were not willing to meet the two leaders and wanted the police not to allow them to enter the hotel premises.

The signatories of the letter are Shivram Hebbar, Pratap Gowda Patil, B C Patil, Byrati Basavraj, S T Somshekar, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Gopalaiyya, H Vishwanath, Narayan Gowda and Mahesh kumutali.

The copies of the letter have been marked to Zone 10 deputy commissioner of police, senior inspector of Powai police station and the management of the hotel they are staying in.

A group of rebel MLAs from the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka has returned to Mumbai from Satara in western Maharashtra, sources had said.

They were earlier on their way to Goa accompanied by a BJP leader, but cut short the trip and returned to the Maharashtra capital.

The rebel MLAs are awaiting legal opinion on how to proceed after the Karnataka Assembly speaker takes a call on their resignations.

Karnataka Assembly Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar on Tuesday said the resignation letters of eight out of 13 MLAs of the ruling coalition were not in the prescribed format and he has asked the legislators to submit them properly.

The fate of the 13-month-old Congress-JD(S) government led by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy is hinged on the Speaker's decision on the resignation of the 14 rebels MLAs including Shivajinagar MLA R Roshan Baig who joined the bandwagon of dissidents on Tuesday.

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