21 Congress ministers resign, rebels to be accommodated: Siddaramaiah

In a desperate bid to save the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka, former chief minister Siddaramaiah announced on Monday morning that 21 Congress ministers would resign from the H.D. Kumaraswamy cabinet. The statement came following two days of tension after a total of 13 Congress and JD(S) MLAs submitted their resignations.

Siddaramaiah, who is the leader of the Congress Legislature Party, announced that the “rebel” MLAs would be accommodated in the cabinet in a reshuffle. Siddaramaiah urged the rebel MLAs not to join the BJP. Siddaramaiah declared the cabinet would be reconstituted, based on “social justice and regional considerations”.

Siddaramaiah attacked the BJP for “luring” the rebel MLAs and declared the saffron party's aims to topple the Congress-JD(S) government would fail again.

Congress and JD(S) leaders held a number of meetings on Monday morning in a bid to resolve the political crisis in the state following the resignations of 13 MLAs. Earlier on Monday, H. Nagesh, an independent MLA who was a minister in the Kumaraswamy cabinet, withdrew support to the Congress-JD(S) government and announced he would be supporting the BJP.

In the afteroon, Siddaramaiah told the media that 21 Congress ministers had stepped down voluntarily. According to news reports, the MLAs submitted their resignation to Karnataka Pradesh Congress President Dinesh Gundu Rao.

In a series of tweets, the former chief minister lambasted the BJP for trying to "woo lawmakers through an unconstitutional path". Addressing the issue of the rebel MLAs, he said, "Of course, some people are bored as to why we haven't got a ministerial seat in our party. All our ministers have voluntarily resigned in order to correct it and have expressed their opinion that the future of the party is important and that personal status is not important."

(With inputs from Prathima Nandakumar)