Congress expels 14 rebel MLAs from Karnataka

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday expelled the 14 rebel MLAs from Karnataka who were responsible for bringing down the party’s coalition government in the state.nnAll the MLAs, who resigned from the state legislature, had abstained from voting that led to the defeat of the Congress-JD(S) government in the trust vote.nnThe action by the party comes days after these MLAs were disqualified from the state legislature.nnThe then Karnataka Assembly speaker K R Ramesh Kumar disqualified 11 Congress legislators — Pratap Gowda Patil, B C Patil, Shivram Hebbar, S T Somashekar, Byrati Basavaraj, Anand Singh, Roshan Baig, Munirathna, K Sudhakar and MTB Nagaraj and Shrimant Patil — on Sunday.nnThree other rebel MLAs — Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumatalli and Shankar — were disqualified on Thursday.nnThe Congress-JDS coalition government headed by H D Kumaraswamy crumbled under the weight of a rebellion by a big chunk of its lawmakers, 20 of whom were absent for the voting that led to the defeat of its trust vote.nnThe AICC has approved the proposal received from PCC President, Karnataka regarding the expulsion of the MLAs, a party statement said, giving the names of all the 14 MLAs.nnSource: Press Trust of India