On Sunday, Mr Mahesh had said the party high command had asked him to abstain from voting (file)

The lone Bahujan Samaj Party legislator in Karnataka has been expelled by party chief Mayawati over his absence from the state assembly during the trust vote this evening in which the Congress-Janata Dal Secular government failed to prove its majority. The legislator, N Mahesh, had been asked by the BSP to vote in favour of the heavily outnumbered government of chief minister HD Kumaraswamy.

"BSP MLA N Mahesh ignored the party high command's order to vote in support of the Kumaraswamy government. He remained absent. The party has taken this indiscipline very seriously and has expelled him," she wrote on Twitter.

The coalition government of the Congress and HD Kumaraswamy's Janata Dal Secular got 99 votes in comparison to the 105 votes of the BJP. With this, it is likely that the BJP would form the government in the state.

On Sunday, Mr Mahesh had claimed that the party had asked him to abstain from voting in the trust vote.

"I had my personal work so I couldn't go to the session. My high command has told me to abstain from voting on trust motion so I won't attend the session on Monday and Tuesday. I'll be in my constituency," he had said.

Hours later, Mayawati informed that Mr Mahesh had been asked by the party to support the coalition.

Earlier this month, 16 legislators - 13 from the Congress and three from JDS - resigned and two independent legislators withdrew support to the coalition government, sending the state into a political turmoil.

Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy had asked Speaker Ramesh Kumar to conduct a floor test, which took place on Tuesday after a tug of war between the ruling coalition and the BJP that even reached the Supreme Court.