The Congress-JD(S) coalition has landed into deep trouble even as 14 Congress and JD(S) MLAs have tendered their resignations. Three JD(S) and ten Congress MLAs submitted their resignation to the Speaker and then met the Governor as well. It must be noted that Congress MLA, Anand Singh, resigned on July 1. This takes the total figure of MLAs who have resigned in the 224-member Assembly to 14. This dramatic turn of events has long-standing consequences for the coalition government in the state.
Speaker Ramesh Kumar, who was not in the office, when the legislators arrived, said, “Whether the government will fall or survive” will be decided “in the assembly”. The Speaker asked the MLAs to return on Tuesday. However, the rebel MLAs met Governor Vala and also conveyed their desire to quit. Meanwhile, the Congress indicted the BJP of foul play and trying to “bring down an elected government” and also asserted that the Karnataka government would continue in power. However, the state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa made it clear that his party had nothing to do with the crisis. Yeddyurappa said, “We have heard that some MLAs have resigned. We are not responsible for this. We will see what happens in the coming days. I am not going to comment until the situation is clear. We will decide after watching the political developments.”
The situation has escalated for the coalition at a time when the Karnataka CM is on a personal and semi-official visit to the US and State Congress chief Gundu Rao is also not in India. Congress leader D K Shivakumar tried to convince the disgruntled MLAs but failed in his attempts. He also appeared adamant at preventing the resignations and said that the MLAs were giving silly reasons for their resignations. However, as per JD(S) leader, H Vishwanath, one of the MLAs who tendered resignation, the resignations were not influenced by “Operation Kamala” and they have resigned out of their free will. As per him, the dissident MLA s have resigned out of disillusionment towards the coalition government and the fact that that the coalition government does not take the MLAs into confidence.
BJP leader, D V Sadananda Gowda, has been quoted by ANI as saying, “Governor is the supreme authority, as per the constitutional mandate if he calls us, certainly we are ready to form the government. We are the single largest party, we have got 105 people with us.” It is thus clear that the BJP is confident of forming government in the state in the backdrop of the ongoing crisis in the state of Karnataka.
It must be noted that these resignations take down the strength of the coalition from 118 MLAs to 104 in the 224-member assembly. This also effectively reduces the size of the assembly to 210. The JD (S)-Congress alliance would, therefore, fall short of the majority mark once these resignations are officially accepted. The BJP, on the other hand, has a total of 105 MLAs in the assembly. In such a case, the BJP would be in the majority position. The Congress-JD(S) coalition would be in no position to survive the floor test and the way things have panned out, it seems that this could very well be the end of the road for the unholy alliance between the Congress and the JD(S).