Siddaramaiah directs congress MLAs to attend CLP meeting, warns of anti-defection law if fails

Former chief minister of Karnataka and Congress leader Siddaramaiah said that the party would take action under anti-defection law against those MLAs who abstain themselves from attending the meeting of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) on Friday. He said that the MLAs skipping the CLP meet will face an expulsion from the party.

As the allegations and counter-allegations of poaching have cast their shadow on the state government led by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, the Congress has called a meeting of its legislators here on January 18 to take stock of the prevailing political situation.

"If somebody doesn't attend this meeting action will be taken against them under the anti-defection law.Also, it'll be assumed that member himself has decided to leave primary membership of the party." said Siddaramaiah.

The decision to hold the meeting of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) was taken after the party leaders alleged that three of their MLAs were taken to Mumbai by the BJP in an attempt to lure them to their fold.

However, the BJP has dismissed the Congress allegations, claiming that the ruling party was making attempts to poach their MLAs. BJP has parked its 104 party MLAs at a hotel in Gurugram in Haryana. In the 224-member Assembly, JDS has 37 MLAs and the Congress 80. The Congress-JDS alliance has the support of some Independents in the House where the majority figure is 113 stay in power.

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Reacting to the political turmoil in Karnataka wherein the fate of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in the state seeming to be hanging in balance, senior Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday had reaffirmed that things in the party were intact and is going strong. 

"Modi government is trying to break our MLAs - they are trying to intimidate our MLAs in the name of Enforcement Directorate. They are not able to succeed in this and they have kept their own MLAs protected in Gurugram. Earlier, they also said that there will be a revolution on Sankrati (Sankrant par Kranti hogi). However, there was not revolution but the festival went well. BJP did the same earlier also in Karnataka - Lotus Operation and they tried hard to form the government. But they failed to do so. Now they have started trying again. But now all our 118 MLAs intact. Nobody is going anywhere. The Congress is going strong. BJP is spreading rumours," he said.

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(With ANI inputs)