Tuesday, July 5 2005 11:31 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Thiruvananthapuram: Taking the split in Congress in Kerala to its legislative wing, nine MLAs loyal to Karunakaran today resigned their assembly membership and joined the National Congress (Indira) floated by the veteran leader after parting ways with the Congress two months back.

Though the en masse resignation, the first such instance in Kerala, posed no threat to the stability of the UDF Government headed by Oommen Chandy, it came as a political embarrassment to the Congress and the UDF coalition. Deciding to leave the assembly when 11 months are left for elections, the MLAs handed in their letters to Speaker Therambil Ramakrishnan at the assembly complex, where the monsoon session of the House is on.

The MLAs said they were quitting to expose the 'misrule and failures' of the Chandy Government and held that the UDF had lost the moral right to remain in office.

With the resignation of the MLAs, the effective strength of the 140-member house had been reduced to 130. The Cherthala seat left by CWC member A K Antony following his election to t he Rajya Sabha is already lying vacant.

With today's development, the strength of UDF which came to power in 2001 with a brute majority of 99 members, came down to 84. The LDF has 41 members and the opposition benches recently swelled to 46 with Kerala Congress Pillai and Jacob factions and Shibu Baby John of RSP (B) leaving the UDF.

The MLAs who resigned are P Sankaran, M P Gangadharan, M A Chandrasekharan, N D Appachan, Maleth Sarala Devi, Radha Raghavan, T V Chandramohan, Sobhana George and D Sugathan.

They came together and handed over their letters to the Speaker in which each MLA wrote "I do hearby tender my resignation from the Kerala Assembly with effect from July 5."

The Speaker accepted the resignations with immediate effect.

The decision of en masse resignation by the MLAs were taken yesterday after they met Karunakaran and NCI President K Muraleedharan here.