Rejecting the Congress' charge of "engineering defections" in Karnataka, the BJP has said that the "internal feud" between ruling allies Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) was behind political instability in the state. Suggesting that senior Congress leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah does not want the alliance to continue, BJP media head and Rajya Sabha MP Anil Baluni said that "ugly internal politics is behind the crisis."

"The reality is that there is a battle for political supremacy within the Congress as well as between it and the JD(S). Siddaramaiah does not want the Kumaraswamy government to continue. This ugly internal politics is behind the instability," Baluni said.  

Meanwhile, the resignations of a total of 13 MLAs - three from JD(S) and ten from Congress (including Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi, both of whom had sent resignations on July 1) have sent the grand old party into a huddle with senior party leaders holding a meet in New Delhi and party general secretary KC Venugopal rushing to Bengaluru on Saturday itself.

Congress has directly blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the instability saying, "Aaya ram gaya ram (defections) has attained a new definition and the new word for it is MODI - Mischievously Orchestrated Defections in India".

"The MLAs are being bought in broad daylight, democracy is being denigrated in broad daylight. The constitution is being trampled upon in broad daylight in Karnataka," said Congress national spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.

The disgruntled MLAs yesterday went to the Assembly Secretariat to submit their resignations to the Speaker but he was not there and therefore they handed over their letters to his personal assistant. They then went to meet governor, Vajubhai Vala.

"I came to know from my personal secretary that 11 legislators gave resignation letters in my office. They were acknowledged with receipts. I will go through them on Tuesday (July 9) as I am on leave on Monday," Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar told reporters.