The Congress and JD(S) on Tuesday expelled 17 legislators, disqualified by former Karnataka Speaker KR Ramesh, for anti-party activities.
In a press communique, the party said the All India Congress Committee (AICC) had approved the proposal from the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee seeking expulsion of these MLAs from the party.
The expelled MLAs Congress legislators Pratap Gouda Patil, BC Patil, Shivaram Hebbar, ST Someshekhar, Byrati Basavraj, Anand Singh, R Roshan Baig, Muniratna, K Sudhakar, MTB Nagaraj, Shrimant Patil, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumatahalli and R Shankar, and JD(S) legislators AH Vishwanath, Gopalaiah and Narayana Gowda.
A day before the trust vote on the BS Yediyurappa government in the Assembly, the Speaker on Sunday disqualified 14 rebel legislators of the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular for defying party whips to attend the House on July 23.
Three rebel Congress legislators -- Jarkiholi, Kumatahalli and R. Shankar -- were disqualified on July 25 for defying the party whip to attend the Assembly and vote in favour of the motion. The rebels were disqualified after the Congress-JD(S) coalition government collapsed after losing the motion of confidence in the Assembly last week.
The coalition had accused the BJP of horse-trading and paying crores of rupees to the renegade MLAs in a bid to topple the government. The rebels had tendered their resignations to the Speaker’s office on July 6 and had boarded a private charter plane, which flew them to Mumbai.
After a long discussion on the repercussions of rebels’ actions and the BJP’s alleged role in the rebellion, the coalition failed to pacify their MLAs and HD Kumaraswamy stepped down as the CM after the motion of confidence was lost. The rebels were holed up in Renaissance Hotel in Mumbai until Friday last week, when BJP’s BS Yediyurappa took oath as the Chief Minister of Karnataka.