Supreme Court order may have made it tough for Kumaraswamy government to stay in power in Karnataka

• The Supreme Court has left the decision on the resignations of the 15 rebel legislators with the Speaker of the Assembly.
• The 15 rebel legislators cannot be forced to participate in HD Kumaraswamy's trust vote on Thursday.
• The southern state, home to India’s Silicon Valley Bengaluru, has been plunged into a political crisis last couple of weeks.
• The JDS-Congress coalition led by Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy is one side of the battle for control and the BJP is on the other.
  

India's Supreme Court has ordered that the 15 rebel legislators cannot be forced to participate in the trust vote on Thursday, which will be a setback for Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy who is fighting to stay in power amidst a rebellion within the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition.

"Karnataka Rebel MLAs Cannot Be Compelled To Attend House. No Time Limit Fixed For Speaker's Decision On Resignations," Live Law reported.

Bengaluru, famous as India’s Silicon Valley, has been in the news for the last two weeks for an ugly political drama that has put governance on pause in the state of Karnataka. At the heart of the crisis is a battle for control over one of the country’s economically more prosperous states, with the ruling JDS-Congress coalition on one side and the BJP on the other.

16 legislators rebelled against the ruling coalition on July 6, bringing to question whether Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had enough numbers to remain in power. One of those 16 has now returned into the Congress-JDS fold, leaving the number of rebels at 15, a day before the Supreme Court verdict.

The question in front of the Supreme Court was whether these resignations should be accepted by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, who had decided that the rebellion was unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition party in Karnataka, has claimed that the existing government should be dissolved because it does not have the required number of legislators backing it in the assembly.

Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy has offered to take a floor test to prove his strength and the trust vote will now take place on July 18.

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