B. Nagendra quits the Karnataka Cabinet 25 days after he returned

Karnataka Planning and Statistics Minister B. Nagendra announced his resignation on Friday at the Vidhana Soudha, 25 days after Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar brought him back into the Cabinet. He later handed the letter to the chief minister. Shivakumar said he would take a decision on Saturday after speaking to the Congress high command.

Nagendra is the four-time MLA from Ballari Rural, a Scheduled Tribe reserved seat. He is the first minister to leave since Shivakumar took oath on 3 June. He was re-inducted on 3 August. The same portfolio fight had already forced him out once. He resigned on 6 June 2024 as minister for Scheduled Tribes Welfare, Youth Empowerment and Sports in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet.

The live case is the alleged diversion of money from the Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation. Published figures for the alleged loss range from about Rs 89 crore to Rs 187 crore depending on the charge sheet and the period counted. The CBI has filed papers. Governor Thawarchand Gehlot has given sanction to prosecute Nagendra for the period when he held the ST welfare portfolio in 2023-24.

What he said at the lectern

Nagendra spoke with ministers Ajay Singh and Rizwan Arshad and with MPs Nasser Hussain and G.C. Chandrashekar beside him. He said he was resigning of his own will so that the party would not pay for what he called unnecessary allegations. He denied a role in the embezzlement. He accused the BJP of targeting him because he comes from a backward tribal community.

He also said he would resign his Assembly seat and challenged the BJP to face him in Ballari Rural. He accused the opposition of disrupting the monsoon session instead of discussing drought. He said the country is governed by the Constitution and by Ambedkar, not by older codes. He added that Shivakumar had asked him not to go and that he was leaving anyway.

The timing followed meetings in Delhi. Nagendra and the chief minister had both been in the capital. Shivakumar saw Rahul Gandhi and other senior leaders. The resignation was announced after those conversations, not before them.

What the BJP takes from the day

The opposition spent the monsoon session demanding Nagendra’s removal on the ground that a chargesheeted minister should not sit in the Cabinet. National president Nitin Nabin was reported to have congratulated Leader of the Opposition R. Ashok on Friday. Party workers had complained that the state unit was slow after Siddaramaiah left office. Nagendra’s exit is the first concrete result they can show against the new chief minister.

BJP and JD(S) leaders now say they will press other files: Karnataka Public Service Commission recruitment, drought relief, the Bidadi township and NICE road tolls. Those campaigns are easier to start than to finish. The Valmiki case had a chargesheet, a governor’s sanction and a minister who had already resigned once. The next targets do not all have that stack of paper.

For Congress the cost is local as well as legal. Ballari Rural is an ST seat the party can hold if Nagendra remains the candidate after a bypoll. If he is convicted, that calculation changes. The Cabinet arithmetic is smaller. One berth is empty. The larger problem is the charge that a corporation built for Scheduled Tribe welfare was used as a till. That charge will be tested in court. Friday only removed the minister from the table where the Assembly can see him.