Mumbai: Rebel MLAs of the Congress-Janata Dal (S) state coalition held a press conference at Hotel Renaissance, as another rebel MLA and Congress leader M T B Nagaraj joined them, here on Sunday, July 14.
As a representative of the rebel MLAs S T Somashekhar said, “M T B Nagaraj has joined us today, amid the media reports speculating that he was convinced by the coalition leaders and that four rebels among us would withdraw their resignations. Nothing of that sort is going to happen as we all have stood by our decision.”
He said that some of the media reports had claimed that there were groups among the rebel MLAs. Rubbishing it he said, “I’ve seen and heard the media reports which stated that we had groups among ourselves, which is not the truth. Let me be very clear that we have no groupism among us. We all are united.”
“We have not taken the decision of walking out of state coalition under any pressure, but it’s a voluntary decision”, he added.
Speaking about another rebel Congress MLA from Chikkaballapur Assembly Constituency Dr Sudhakar, he said, “We all have seen how he was manhandled by some of the party people, at the time when he had met Speaker Ramesh Kumar to tender his resignation. But now he is in Delhi and in support of us.
On the two independent MLAs R Shankar and Nagesh resignation he said, “They’ll take their own decisions.”
Meanwhile, M T B Nagaraj has also stood by Somshekhar’s statement.
