Three days after submitting his resignation to Speaker Ramesh Kumar, former Home Minister and rebel Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy clarified that he is still with the party.
"I have only resigned as MLA, not from the party," he told the media on Tuesday.
He also added that he has no demand for any ministry, "Can I tell you the future? I have resigned and I don't have any ministries demand. I don't know why media keeps asking me this. In 25 years, I have been a minister. And I have never lobbied to become one," he added. Multiple sources from the Congress had claimed that Ramalinga Reddy was upset with Deputy Chief Minister Parameshwara and wanted the Bengaluru Development portfolio.
Ramalinga Reddy's latest revelation came even as his daughter and MLA from Jayanagar, Soumya Reddy attended the Congress Legislature Party meeting at Vidhana Soudha. Soumya had met Sonia Gandhi in Delhi on Monday, who in turn had reportedly asked the daughter to convince the father to take back his resignation.
Ramalinga Reddy is key to this rebellion. Both the Congress and the BJP have devoted much of their energy to convincing Ramalinga Reddy. The Congress believes that Ramalinga Reddy is only upset at Kumaraswamy and Parameshwara and can be cajoled to not leave the party.
On Saturday, the JD(S)-Congress government in Karnataka was in a tenuous position once again, after the resignation of 13 MLAs from the ruling coalition.
The crisis this time started after 10 Congress and 3 JD(S), with the coalition submitted their resignations to the Speaker's office last Saturday. The disgruntled legislators met with the Governor and informed him about their decision to resign. The MLAs were flown out to Sofitel Hotel in Mumbai. On July 8, Independent MLA H Nagesh withdrew support from the coalition and KPJP MLA R Shankar too withdrew support. Earlier this month MLA Anand Singh had also resigned. The strength of the Assembly is 224 including Speaker. With the 13 MLAs resigning, the quorum has called to 221. With these spate of resignations, the Congress-JD(S) coalition has 104 MLAs while the BJP has 107 MLAs on its side. The coalition does not have the majority to rule the government if the speaker accepts the resignation of the MLAs.