The endgame for the coalition government is nearing and the Congress-JDS coalition seems to be looking to prolong the trust vote debate till Monday.

This, they believe, will give them more time to woo back their MLAs. But the Supreme Court verdict on Wednesday on the petition by the MLAs could put a spanner in the works.

Sources say that voting on the confidence motion may not happen on Thursday, when Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy will move the motion in the assembly.

The coalition partners are likely to drag the debate on the motion till Monday, to buy more time, by lining up a long list of people to speak during the motion.

This list will include senior leaders like Kumaraswamy, CLP leader Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara, Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, PWD Minister H D Revanna, Home Minister M B Patil and others.

These sessions could very well keep the House busy on Thursday and Friday with no session on the weekend.

If there is no success in convincing MLAs on Saturday and Sunday, Kumaraswamy is likely to resign on Monday at an auspicious hour, sources said.

Congress Working President Eshwar Khandre said, “We will like to bring on record why the confidence vote has been necessitated. How many attempts they have made to bring this government down. For posterity, it must be known.”

To plan for Thursday, closed-door meetings were held at the KK Guest House where KC Venugopal, Siddaramaiah, Parameshwara, KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao and Khandre strategised, settling on plans to save the government, even at this juncture. Possible options, should the government not survive, were also discussed.

“We are hopeful some of our MLAs will come back,” some Congress leaders said.

Meanwhile, Dinesh Gundu Rao on Tuesday tweeted that the Congress and JDS MLAs in  Mumbai are in a state of ‘complete lockdown’ and have had their phones taken away.

“Now they are under house arrest, soon they will be waiting in queue to get BJP B-forms.”