BENGALURU: Chartered flights ferrying MLAs, herding of MLAs in resorts and hotels, marathon meetings to discuss the fate of the government by all three parties may all come to an end finally on Thursday.
The fate of the Congress-JDS coalition is all set to be decided on July 18 at 11 am when Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy will move the confidence motion in the assembly.
Earlier in the day, BJP had submitted a letter to the assembly secretary seeking to move a ‘no-confidence motion’ against the Congress-JDS government. But Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar decided upon Thursday as the D-Day for the coalition government before suspending the business of the House for two days.
“It has been decided in the Business Advisory Committee that the discussion on the vote of confidence will be taken on Thursday at 11 am,” said Siddaramaiah, Congress Legislature Party chief, after the meeting held on Monday afternoon.
“I am confident. Why are you worried?” said an agitated Kumaraswamy as media persons flocked around him as he emerged out of the meeting. Much like Kumaraswamy, BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa was confident of having the numbers.
Meanwhile, the 14 rebel MLAs lodged in a Mumbai hotel reiterated that they would not return to Bengaluru for the trust vote.
They are awaiting the Supreme Court’s verdict on their petition over resignations and are unlikely to attend the session on Thursday.
Leaders like Ramalinga Reddy, the coalition insists, are already on board to withdraw resignation.
But with numbers still not adding up in its favour, the coalition now rests at 102 including the Speaker and a nominated member of the Anglo-Indian community, as against the BJP’s 107 including the support of two independent MLAs.
Taking no chances, the Big 3 took away their respective legislators to resorts.