Day after announcing resignation withdrawal, Congress MLA heads to Mumbai with BJP members

A day after announcing the withdrawal of his resignation, Congress legislator MTB Nagaraj on Sunday morning boarded a special flight from Bengaluru to Mumbai.

Karnataka BJP president BS Yeddyurappa's personal assistant Santosh and BJP MLA R Ashok were present with Nagaraj on the same flight which took off at 10:30 am from HAL airport.

Hoskote MLA Nagaraj and Chikballapur Congress MLA K Sudhakar Rao were among the rebel Congress- JD(S) MLAs, who resigned from the Assembly on July 10.

After meetings with Congress leaders DK Shivakumar and Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, Nagaraj had on Saturday expressed his wish to stay with the party.

"Sudhakar and I had given resignations from MLAs' post. All the leaders are asking me to stay in the Congress since morning. I have decided to stay in the party," Nagraj had told media persons in Bengaluru.

On Saturday, five more dissident legislators -- Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, N Nagaraju, Munirathna and Roshan Baig -- approached the Supreme Court seeking its direction to Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar to accept their "voluntarily" resignations and not proceed to disqualify them.

A bunch of dissidents had earlier approached the top court with the same demand and the court had ordered a status quo in the case on Friday.

Taking advantage of the wonky state that the coalition is in, BJP strongman Yeddyurappa had asked Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to prove his government's majority in the Assembly on Monday.

"The Chief Minister had said that he would not continue without seeking a trust vote. He should fulfill his commitment on Monday. We will wait till then," he had said.

Yeddyurappa accepted that he was in contact with the rebel MLAs of Congress and JD(S) who are staying at a hotel in Mumbai.

"They are all happy and I am in touch with them," he said when asked if he is in contact with the rebel MLAs.

Independent MLAs R Shankar and H Nagesh, who took back their support from the coalition government on July 8, have written a letter to the Speaker asking him to arrange their seating in the opposition benches in the Assembly.

-ANI