With a trust vote in offing in the coming week in the Karnataka Assembly amidst the political crisis, the legislators of both the ruling coalition and the opposition are set for yet another cosy weekend in luxury hotels and resorts.
While the Congress MLAs are put up in Taj Vivanta Yeshwanthpur, JD(S) leaders are already in Prestige Golfshire and the BJP MLAs will be staying in Ramada hotel in Yelahanka and Sai Leela hotel in Rajanakunte.
Five of the Congress rebel MLAs – Roshan Baig, Anand SIngh, Ramalinga Reddy, Sudhakar and Munirathna Naidu – are not in any of these resorts.
The 10 MLAs – Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkhiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, BC Patil, ST Somashekar, Arbail Sivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, K Gopalaiah, HD Vishwanath and Narayan Gowda – who have been holed up in a hotel in Mumbai since July 6, continue to stay there.
The political crisis in the state triggered panic in the JD(S) ranks and they have been staying at Golfshire resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru since their reservation at a Kodagu resort was cancelled.
Incidentally, this is not the first time in recent history that the state has witnessed MLAs shepherded to resorts. In May 2018, soon after the fractured mandate of the 2018 Assembly elections, the state of Karnataka saw similar resort politics. The Congress-JD(S) legislators had then gone to stay at a hotel in Hyderabad after being locked up in different resorts in Bengaluru. The same was true for the BJP, whose MLAs were initially taken to Gurgaon.
In January earlier this year, the Congress CLP party was holed up at the Eagleton resort after rumours that some MLAs were being lured by the BJP.