BENGALURU: Even as speculation was rife that 13 ruling party MLAs - 11 Congress and two JD(S) - are likely to resign from their assembly seats on Saturday, close to a dozen have already reached the Vidhana Soudha and submitted their resignations to speaker KR Ramesh Kumar.
Congress MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, BC Patil, Mahesh Kumatalli, Prathapgouda Patil, Shivaram Hebbar, Subba Reddy and H Vishwanath, Narayana Gowda and K Gopalaiah from JD(S) submitted their resignations to Kumar's secretary as the speaker was not in office.
Congress MLA Anand Singh has already submitted his resignation to the speaker.
Another batch of Congress MLAs Ramalinga Reddy, Sowmya Reddy, N Muniratna, ST Somashekar and Byrathi Basavaraj - who have arrived at the speaker's office - will also submit their resignations and go on a padayatra to Raj Bhavan to meet Governor Vajubhai R Vala.
Karnataka chief minister
HD Kumaraswamy is currently in the Unites States, and is expected to reach Bengaluru on Monday.
The developments have come as a huge shock to the Congress leaders with water resources minister DK Shivakumar, the party's trouble-shooter, rushing to Bengaluru from his constituency Kanakapura. While Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundurao is abroad, working president Eshwar Khandre has rushed to senior Congress MLA Ramalinga Reddy's residence in Bengaluru as the latter' s name also figured among the legislators set to resign.
The speaker said there is a procedure for the MLAs to resign. "They have to take an appointment with me. I am not sitting in a market place and blackmail tactics of spreading rumours to resign will not work," he added.
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