Karnataka political crisis: DK Shivakumar meets rebel Congress MLA MTB Nagaraj, asks him to take back resignation

Bengaluru: Amid ongoing political turmoil in Karnataka, Congress leader DK Shivakumar visited the residence of Congress MLA and state minister MTB Nagaraj early on Saturday morning to convince him to take back his resignation. Hoskote MLA Nagaraj and Chikballapur Congress MLA Dr K Sudhakar resigned from the Assembly on 10 July. Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar had ruled out accepting their resignations “overnight”. “Two MLAs Dr K Sudhakar and MTB Nagaraj have resigned from the Assembly. I have not accepted any resignation, I cannot do it overnight like that. I have given them time on 17th. I will go through the procedure and make a decision,” Kumar had said on 10 July while speaking to media persons in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, on Friday, the Supreme Court took up the pleas of 10 dissident MLAs and directed the Speaker to maintain status quo on their resignation and disqualification till 16 July. The 13-month-old Congress-JD(S) government slumped into crisis following the resignation of 10 MLAs from the membership of the state Assembly last week.