All Karnataka ministers resign to little effect

BENGALURU: With all 30 ministers of the Janata Dal(S)-Congress government nudged into putting in their papers on Monday after a breakfast meeting at the residence of Deputy Chief Minister Dr G. Parameshwar, leaders of both parties went into overdrive to save their 14-month old government.

However, as two independents quit the Cabinet and pledged their allegiance to the BJP, boosting the saffron numbers to 107 in the 224 member Assembly, the coalition’s numbers have rapidly shrunk to 104, and could drop even further when the Congress’ Muslim face and Shivajinagar MLA Roshan Baig told Deccan Chronicle, he too would quit on Tuesday.

A second round of resignations could bring numbers crashing even further. According to top sources in state BJP close to former CM B.S. Yeddyurappa, Congress MLAs of Khanapur, Anjali Nimbalkar, Jayanagar MLA, Sowmya Reddy and Bagepalli MLA, Subbareddy are likely to submit their resignation to the Speaker.

BJP has planned to get another 10 MLAs to resign to reduce the combined ruling party numbers to below 100. With resignation of 13 MLAs, ruling party number has reduced to 104 and BJP number has rose to 107, including support of two Independent MLAs, R. Shankar and H. Nagesh.

In the second batch, three MLAs will submit the resignation and BJP is trying to persuade another two Congress MLAs, V. Muniyappa from Sidlaghatta and Srinivasagowda from Kolar to quit.