Karnataka Congress rebel MLAs skip party meeting

Eleven rebel Congress MLAs in Karnataka, who resigned from their Assembly seats, skipped the party's legislature meeting here on Tuesday, an official said.

"None of the rebel legislators turned up for the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting despite giving them a notice on July 7 to be present at it in the Vidhan Soudha (state Secretariat)," party spokesman Ravi Gowda told IANS here.

Of the party's 78 legislators, Gowda said about 60 of them were at the meeting while five to six had informed the CLP leader (Siddaramaiah) in advance of their inability to attend.

The rebel lawmakers who resigned and skipped the meeting are Ramalinga Reddy, S.T. Somashekar, Bayrati Basavaraj, Munirathna, Pratapgauda Patil, B.C. Patil, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Shivram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumatahalli, S.N. Subba Reddy and Anand Singh.

The others absent legislators were Roshan Baig, K. Sudhakar, Housing Minister M.T.B. Nagaraj and B.K. Sangameshwar.

Baig, who represents the Shivajinagar Assembly seat in the city centre, was suspended on June 19 from Congress for his alleged anti-party activities.

Of the 12 rebels, 10 of them flew to Mumbai on July 6 after submitting their resignations to the secretary of Assembly Speaker K.R. Ramesh Kumar in his absence and meeting state Governor Vajubhai Vala at the Raj Bhavan here.

Reddy, who represents the BTM Layout constituency in Bengaluru, remained at home in the city's southern suburb.