In political circles, Congressman DK Shivakumar has gained the reputation of a ‘troubleshooter’ over the years. Called ‘Kotwal’ (police constable), Shivakumar is often parachuted into the middle of an emergency and is famous for leaving no man behind.

But Monday’s resignation by independent MLA and minister H Nagesh stunned even him. In true filmy style, Shivakumar responded to news of Nagesh’s resignation and raced to HAL airport to try and catch him before he left.

However, this time around, the plane flew away, leaving a dejected Shivakumar stating that he had missed him only by 5 minutes.

Incidentally, Nagesh had earlier served as the Director Technical of the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Limited (KPTCL), when Shivakumar was the Energy Minister.

It was also Shivakumar who convinced Nagesh to support the coalition instead of the BJP.

In fact, the past week has been a bad one for the ace troubleshooter as he tried his best to quell the dissent within the MLAs. On Saturday, he blazed a path to the Vidhana Soudha from Kanakpura, 90 minutes away by road, when he learnt that a group of 11 MLAs led by former JDS state president H Vishwanath had reached the speaker’s chamber.

He entered the chambers and tried to dissuade Ramalinga Reddy, ST Somashekar, Byrati Basavaraj and Munirathna. He even tore up Munirathna’s resignation letter before bundling the four rebels into a vehicle and heading for his Crescent Road residence but to no avail.

In the past, Shivakumar has to his credit several operations which ensured the safety of the Congress. Earlier this year, he herded MLAs to the Eagleton Resort during the ‘Operation Kamala’ effort.

In August last year, he hosted Congress legislators from Gujarat and kept them from being poached during Ahmed Patel’s election bid.

He managed to track down and bring missing MLA Anand Singh to the assembly.

On Monday,  Shivakumar finally took a flight to Delhi to speak to the High Command and get fresh instructions for his next course of troubleshooting, if there is any to be done.