Congress MLA Ramalinga Reddy and K Gopalaiah from Janata Dal-Secular failed to appear before Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar on Monday afternoon.
Reddy told News9 that he had gone to visit the doctor and couldn't meet the Speaker on time due to traffic. "Speaker's office will call me, I will go today or tomorrow, whenever they call me. The reason for the resignation was internal. I will have to come for the floor test, my resignation is not accepted," said Reddy.
The Congress leader later took to Twitter to rubbish the news of him flying to Mumbai. "Some people are unnecessarily spreading the news that I am flying to Mumbai. I have made it very clear that I am in Bengaluru. Request media friends to abstain from the rumours," wrote Reddy.
The Supreme Court passed a judgment regarding the resignation of the 15 rebel MLAs on Wednesday. The court stated that the Speaker can take as much time as he wants to make a decision regarding the resignations of the MLAs. The court added that the rebel MLAs cannot be forced to take part in assembly proceedings until the decision is made.
Reddy, who is the only rebelling MLA in Bengaluru while the others are in Mumbai, was not clear regarding his presence during the trust vote scheduled to take place in Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru on Thursday.
This vote will seal the fate of the Karnataka government with the balance in favour of the Opposition, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
When asked whether he will withdraw his resignation if offered the deputy CM post, Reddy said that he doesn't go hunting for power. Talking about the multiple resignations in the assembly which left the state government in turmoil, Reddy said that the reason for his resignation is separate and everyone has their own reason to resign. Reddy could not make it clearer that he did not influence anyone with their resignation.
