Siddaramaiah calls for suspension of dissenting legislators

Karnataka former chief minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Friday called for the suspension of four dissenting legislators of the party under the anti-defection law.

"I have issued notice and whips, three times, to them to participate in the budget session and the CLP meeting and the honourable Speaker should take legal action against them," former Chief Minister and senior Congress leader said at a press conference here.

He added, "All four dissenting lawmakers wrote a letter to me in which they said that they can't come before February 15. I have already given sufficient opportunity to them. Now, the unanimous decision of the party is to proceed with a legal action against all four of them under the anti-defection law."

He said the legislators Ramesh Jarakiholi, Mahesh Kumtalli, Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Ganesh JN were absent from the CLP meet held in January this year.

Earlier in the day, Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy removed one of the four dissenting Congress MLA Umesh Jadhav from the post of the chairman of the Warehouse Corporation and replaced him with Pratap Gowda Patil.

On Wednesday, Siddaramaiah issued another notice to the four dissenting party MLAs seeking an explanation before or after the Assembly Session.

Earlier in January, he had served notices to the four legislators who did not turn up at a Congress legislature party meeting in Bengaluru.

The four Karnataka Congress MLAs on January 18 abstained from the CLP meeting, which decided to move rest of the 76 legislators to a resort. The meeting was convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation that some of the party MLAs had switched over to the BJP.