Karnataka Congress calls legislators for meeting on Tuesday

Bengaluru, July 7 (IANS) A beleaguered Karnataka Congress on Sunday called a meeting of all its 78 legislators on July 9 to resolve the crisis arising out of nine rebel party lawmakers resigning from their Assembly seats on Saturday.

Congress lawmaker Ananda Singh (Vijayanagara) had resigned on July 1, taking the tally of rebel MLAs to 10.

"Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah has directed all the legislators to assemble in the conference hall of Vidhan Soudha at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday (July 9) to discuss all issues, including the concerns of those who resigned on Saturday," Congress spokesman Ravi Gowda told IANS.

The decision to hold the CLP meeting was taken at a meeting of the party's state unit leaders, including Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, party's state unit working President Eshar Kandre and party's Karnataka in-charge K.C. Venugopal.

"The party's state unit President Dinesh Gundu Rao and senior party leaders such as Mallikarjun Kharge will also participate in the meeting," Gowda said.

Incidentally, Assembly Speaker K.R Ramesh Kumar will on Tuesday look into the resignation letters submitted by nine Congress and three Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) legislatures to his secretary on Saturday.

"As the rebel legislators could not meet Kumar to submit their resignations personally on Saturday, they sought an appointment with him on Tuesday to insist him on accepting them for the reasons they mentioned in their letters," a party source told IANS.

The rebels, who flew to Mumbai on Saturday evening after apprising Governor Vajubhai Vala in Raj Bhavan of the reasons for resigning, are set to return on Tuesday morning.

"They went to Mumbai to remain incommunicado with the party's state leaders, as they did not want to discuss their resignations till the Speaker accepted them," the source added.