Inertia grips Congress in Karnataka as leaders make no move to stop MLA resignations

The coalition government in Karnataka is in a crisis again after the resignation of two Congress legislators from the party on the same day. More MLAs are suspected to leave as the Congress-JD(S) alliance in the backdrop of a suspected 'Operation Lotus' at play in the state.

With the current political tension in the state, it looks like the coalition is slowly fading away and the party leaders are silently letting it happen. The resignation of the Congress legislators Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi comes at a time when the chief minister HD Kumaraswamy has gone abroad.

The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president Dinesh Gundu Rao is also likely to go on a foreign trip while the state government is just hanging on a thread. Instead, Rao has assigned working president Eshwar Khandre to reach out to rebel MLAs to pacify them but in vain.

With the resignation of the Congress legislators, some of the party leaders have also expressed their displeasure at the functioning style of the party. Senior Congress leader and legislator Tanveer Sait lashed out at the party saying that the Congress does not value minority MLAs. It is also alleged that the Congress MLA from Athani, Mahesh Kumathalli might be the 15th leader to resign from the Congress. He said Mahesh will follow the steps of his brother Ramesh Jarkiholi.

According to the reports, Ramesh Jarkiholi is constantly pressurising Kumathalli to resign from the party while his brother and Congress leader and forest minister Satish Jarkiholi is pacifying him to stay in the party.

Despite all these hiccups and seemingly a very unstable state, former CM and CLP leader Siddaramaiah is confident that the coalition will continue its term without any disruption. He alleged that the BJP leadership is directly involved in the resignation of the rebel MLAs. "They are offering power and money. They want to pull down this government but will not succeed. The two MLAs will not join BJP," he said.

The BJP has termed the coalition government as a sinking ship and that the collapse of such government is inevitable. The Karnataka BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa has dared the coalition government over the poaching of legislators. He said that even if the coalition attempts to poach the BJP MLAs, no one will quit the party to join the Congress-JD(S) combine.