"We have given our resignation to the speaker's office. We have brought this to the notice of the governor as well. We urge that our resignations be accepted," H Vishwanath, a lawmaker of the chief minister's JDS said after meeting the governor. Mr Vishwanath resigned as JDS state president just days ago.

"I have come to submit my resignation to speaker," Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy told the media while waiting at speaker Ramesh Kumar's office. "I am not going to blame anyone in the party or the high command. I somewhere feel I was being neglected over some issues," he added.

Karnataka minister DK Shivakumar, the Congress troubleshooter who has spent many months trying to keep the flock together, coaxed three Congress lawmakers, including Ramalinga Reddy, to go with him, after meeting the rebels at the speaker's office but they later went to the Raj Bhavan. Mr Shivakumar also conceded that he tore up resignation letters of the rebelling lawmakers, as alleged by opposition BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa, defending the action as one out of "emotion".

Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and Mr Shivakumar called an emergency meeting of legislators and corporators. Besides the Chief Minister, state Congress chief Dinesh Gundu Rao is also away, but is rushing back to Bengaluru.

Despite the efforts by the Congress, the rebelling leaders addressed the media together outside the governor's residence, claiming they were among 14 legislators quitting the ruling coalition. As many as 10 of them were then flown out to Mumbai later in the evening on a chartered flight and put up at a five-star hotel.

The Congress, after a meeting of senior leaders in Delhi on Saturday evening, blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP for the lawmakers quitting. "Aaya Ram, gaya Ram politics (horse-trading) has a new definition now: Mischievously Orchestrating Defections In India - MODI," Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said.

The Congress and JDS together have 116 in the 224-member state assembly where 113 is the majority mark. The coalition will crash if 14 lawmakers quit. The year-old coalition, wobbly from the start, has struggled with revolt and infighting since it came to power in May last year.

The BJP, which has 105 legislators, says the party has nothing to do with the walkout by the Congress legislators - and says if the government falls, the BJP should be invited to form government.

On Monday, two Congress legislators, Anand Singh and Ramesh Jarkiholi had resigned, bringing the ruling coalition of the JDS and the Congress down to 116. The resignation of the two legislators has not been formally accepted though.