Karnataka floor test live updates: HD Kumarswamy submits resignation to the governor

Ahead of the floor test of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, security has been beefed up around Vidhana Soudha. Adequate security has been deployed at Vidhana Soudha and Raj Bhavan road.

Efforts of coalition leaders to rope in families of dissident legislators in a bid to bring them back to the party fold appear to have hit a wall with kin refusing to get involved. Family members, while admitting they are tense and apprehensive over the entire affair and want the logjam to end, denied coalition leaders’ claim that the rebels are being held captive and against their will.

The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) decided at a meeting on Sunday evening to aggressively expose in the assembly on Monday how the BJP allegedly engineered the resignations of the rebel MLAs. The party also decided to highlight the alleged audio conversation between BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa and Congress rebel MLA BC Patil to push the BJP on the back foot. “The BJP is spending Rs 1,000 crore to poach our MLAs,” KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao said

The two independent MLAs in the state assembly moved the Supreme Court on Sunday, seeking an urgent direction to speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to conclude the trust vote sought by the Congress-JD(S) government on Monday itself as they feared it would be stalled again on the specious ground of illness of chief minister HD Kumaraswamy.

“Let us sit together and discuss all your problems and arrive at a solution to save this democratically elected government from the evil forces which are trying to destroy any democratic and constitutionally established institutions for the sake of power,” he said in a statement late on Sunday.

Smelling victory, state BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa said he was “100% confident that things will reach a conclusion” and the 14-month-old Kumaraswamy government will be ousted. The ruling alliance, on the other hand, is looking for some respite from the Supreme Court, which is yet to decide on their plea that the court’s July 17 verdict interferes with parties’ right to issue whip to its MLAs.

BSP legislator N Mahesh, who was part of the JD(S)-Congress coalition until October last year, has been directed by party supremo Mayawati to vote in favour of the confidence motion moved by chief minister HD Kumaraswamy. Mayawati confirmed her party’s stand through a tweet on Sunday. Earlier in the day, Mahesh had said he would abstain from voting as he had received no orders from Mayawati. “I will remain absent from assembly proceedings on Monday,” Mahesh told TOI. But he remained incommunicado after Mayawati’s tweet. Sources close to Mahesh say he attended a camp of BSP cadre on Sunday and he was expecting a direction from Mayawati, but she didn’t call him or send a message, a source said. Mahesh was elected from Kollegal assembly constituency in Chamarajanagar district last year’s assembly elections during which the JD(S) and BSP had a pre-poll alliance.

In a last-ditch effort to save the tottering coalition government, top leaders of the Congress and the JD(S) on Sunday proposed replacing chief minister HD Kumaraswamy with someone from the Congress to placate the dissidents, but the rebel MLAs flatly turned the offer down, insisting there is no question of going back on their decision to resign.

With little wiggle room left ahead of Monday’s trust vote, the ruling JD (S)-Congress coalition went all out to reach out to the rebels — offering a Congress chief minister, tapping family members to pressure them, and CM HD Kumaraswamy appealing to “sit together and discuss all your problems and save this democratically elected government” — only to be met with a stubborn ‘no’.