The Supreme Court has asked 10 rebel MLAs of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition in Karnataka to meet the Assembly Speaker at 6 p.m. today to convey to him their decision to resign.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi asked the Karnataka Assembly Speaker to decide on the resignation of the MLAs during the course of the day.

The bench, also comprising Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose, said the decision taken by the Speaker has to be intimated tomorrow when the court takes up the matter again.

The apex court also directed the Karnataka Director General of Police to provide protection to the 10 MLAs from Bengaluru airport to the Assembly after their arrival from Mumbai.

At the outset, the apex court made it clear that it was passing orders on the 10 MLAs who were before it and not the others. The 10 rebel MLAs had moved apex court alleging that the Karnataka Assembly Speaker was not accepting their resignations.

The MLAs who have filed the petition are Pratap Gouda Patil, Ramesh Jarkiholi, Byrati Basavaraj, BC Patil, S T Somashekhar, Arbail Shivaram Hebbar, Mahesh Kumathalli, K Gopalaiah, A H Vishwanath and Narayana Gowda.
Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has said that he will not resign despite 18 MLAs withdrawing their support to his Government.

Addressing media persons after meeting senior Congress leaders in Bengaluru today, he said his government has the numbers.

He reminded media persons that in 2009-10, BJP leader B S Yeddyurappa too had not resigned when 18 MLAs had withdrawn their support to his Government then.

On the other hand, BJP Legislature Party Karnataka will meet in Bengaluru today to discuss the situation arising out of spate of resignations by Congress and JD(S) MLAs.

The party lawmakers are also expected to work out strategies in case the HD Kumaraswamy government collapses.

A delegation of BJP leaders met Governor Vajubhai Vala at Raj Bhawan yesterday and sought his intervention for a floor test in the assembly as according to the party the Kumaraswamy government has lost the majority.

Meanwhile, the political crisis in the state has further deepened after two more Congress MLAs MTB Nagaraj and K Sudhakar submitted their resignation to the Assembly Speaker yesterday. With this, the number of rebels has gone up to 18.

The Karnataka Government has called a cabinet meeting today.