MUMBAI: Karnataka minister
DK Shivakumar, along with former Union minister
Milind Deora, was on Wednesday forcibly removed from outside a Mumbai hotel hours after he started a stakeout insisting on meeting the rebel MLAs from his state staying there.
Congress leaders Shivakumar, Deora and Naseem Khan were bundled into a police van and driven away to the Kalina campus guest house, while the remaining leaders from Karnataka who were camping outside
Renaissance Hotel were quietly asked to leave.
This came a couple of hours after
Mumbai Police imposed prohibitory orders under Sec 144 of CrPC preventing an assembly of more than four persons near the hotel where the rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs from Karnataka were staying. Section 144 of the CrPC prohibits an assembly of more than four persons in an area.
JD(S) MLAs Shivalinge Gowda , GT Devegowda and CN Balakrishna were the other leaders from Karnataka who were detained by the Mumbai Police.
Before leaving they alleged that two BJP leaders from Karnataka - R Ashok and KG Bopaiah - were camping inside the hotel and instigating the rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs against meeting them.
Earlier in the morning, Shivakumar turned up at the hotel in Powai area but was prevented from entering to meet the rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs staying there.
His reservation there was cancelled by the hotel authorities citing an emergency and the Mumbai police stopped him saying there was a written complaint from the ten rebel MLAs saying they feared threat to their life due to his arrival there.
But Shivakumar and his colleagues stayed put outside the hotel in the heavy rain arguing with the police that his former colleagues, who had submitted their resignation as MLA putting the 13-month-old Karnataka government in crisis, would agree to meet him.
Later, local Congress MLA Naseem Khan, and party leaders Milind Deora and Sanjay Nirupam arrived at the site at around 1 pm
Khan then told the police that he could go in to meet the rebel legislators if they saw a threat in Shivakumar, but that was turned down.
'' You are claiming that the legislators have claimed a threat from Shivakumar. Since they haven't named me, I can go inside and meet them," he told DCP Sangramsinh Nishandar.
High drama followed as security personnel, camera crews, media personnel and political supporters jostled with each other outside the luxury hotel. Around 2.30 in the afternoon, Shivakumar and other Congress leaders were taken into custody.