All the Congress ministers in the Karnataka Cabinet onMonday submitted their resignations to party’s legislative leader Siddaramaiahin a bid to save the state’s 13-month-old Congress-JD-S coalition governmentfrom collapsing, a senior party official said on Monday.
“All our 22 ministers have submitted their resignationletters to Siddaramaiah to make way for the rebel legislators and save thecoalition government,” party’s state in-charge K.C. Venugopal told reportshere.
The resignation letters in Kannada were handed over toSiddaramaiah at a meeting of the party leaders and ministers held at DeputyChief Minister G. Parameshwara’s residence here.
The 34-member ministry has 22 Congress ministers, 10 fromJanata Dal-Secular (JD-S) 10 and one each from Karnataka Pragnyavantha JanathaParty (KPJP) and Independent.
Trouble started on Saturday when 10 Congress and three JD-Slawmakers resigned expressing lack of confidence in the government. However,Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar is yet to decide on the resignations.
Intensifying the crisis on Monday, Independent Nagesh alsoresigned as Small-Scale Industries Minister and withdrew support to thecoalition government led by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.
Nagesh submitted his resignation letter to state GovernorVajubhai Vala at the Raj Bhavan.
Nagesh got elected in the May 2018 Assembly elections fromMulbagal (SC) constituency in Kolar district.