Congress willing to settle demands of rebel MLAs, says DK Shivakumar

Karnataka Congress leader DK Shivakumar on Sunday said that his party is willing to settle the demands of the rebel MLAs and hoped they will support the coalition government.

"The Congress party is ready to settle their demands. We are getting signals that they will save our government," he told ANI.

Citing the law, Shivakumar observed the MLAs were elected on Congress ticket and voting against the party during a confidence motion in the Assembly would lead to loss of membership of the House.

"The law is very clear. If they vote against a confidence motion, they will lose their membership of the House," he noted as Congress made efforts to placate the rebel legislators and woo them back into the party fold.

"I have confidence in all our MLAs. They have been elected from Congress and they have been there for a long period. They have fought like tigers in their domain. I think some good gesture will prevail. We will listen to them with an open mind. They are our people. Definitely, at some point they will come back," he added.

Shivakumar had visited the residence of his party's dissident MLA M T B Nagaraj on Saturday to convince him to take back his resignation. Nagaraj and his party colleague K Sudhakar had resigned from the Assembly earlier this month.

The 13-month-old coalition government in Karnataka slumped into crisis following the resignation of several Congress and JD(S) MLAs from the membership of the House.

-ANI