The Congress has set up a loyalty test for its MLAs in Karnataka at a time the BJP’s alleged efforts to topple the Congress-Janata Dal Secular government by engineering defections appears to be fizzling out.

Congress legislature party leader P.C. Siddaramaiah has despatched letters to each of the party’s 80 MLAs urging them to attend a legislature party meeting scheduled for Friday afternoon.

He has warned that absence would be construed as indiscipline and lead to action, including the application of the anti-defection law.

Still, there’s some anxiety within the Congress over how many legislators would turn up.

“Hopefully, most of our MLAs will attend the meeting,” state Congress vice-president B.L. Shankar told The Telegraph on Thursday.

“Where is the need for anyone to skip the meeting? Anyone who has a pressing engagement can inform the CLP leader (Siddaramaiah). So far, no one has said anything about their possible absence.”

However, B. Nagendra, one of the three “missing” MLAs who had aroused the Congress’s suspicions earlier this week, has expressed doubts about attending the meeting.

He told a Kannada channel that he had to attend a court case relating to illegal mining in Bellary on Friday afternoon. He insisted he had no intention of leaving the party and said he had visited Mumbai for “personal reasons”.

Anand Singh has already returned to Bangalore and reaffirmed his loyalty to the party while the third “missing” MLA, Ramesh Jarkiholi, appears still to be in Mumbai.

Shankar claimed the BJP’s alleged mission had failed. “There’s no way they can succeed in pulling down this government. They will never be able to entice enough of our MLAs,” he said.

In the 224-seat Assembly, the BJP has 104 members, the Congress 80 including the Speaker, the JDS 37 and its ally Bahujan Samaj Party, one.

The BJP’s only success so far has been to get the lone Independent MLA, H. Nagesh, and the lone Karnataka Pragnavantha Janata Party member, R. Shankar, to withdraw support to the government. But that still leaves it 7 short of the majority mark of 113.

A Congress source who declined to be named said efforts were on to “bring back” Nagesh and Shankar. He added that those who had gone to Mumbai would return to Bangalore by Friday morning, in time for the legislature party meeting.

“With disciplinary action looming, I don’t think anyone will take a risk,” he said.

He cited how the Congress had been able to get rebels such as Nagendra and Singh to turn up and follow the party whip during the May floor test that defeated the two-day-old BJP government headed by B.S. Yeddyurappa. The BJP had been the first to stake claim after the elections threw up a hung Assembly.

On Thursday, the BJP denied the Congress allegation of having offered huge sums, running into tens of crores, and cabinet berths to its MLAs.

State BJP general secretary C.T. Ravi said: “Was there any deal when all of them changed sides?” he asked. “The problem is, this government lacks a popular mandate. We won 104 seats but you are running the government because of simple arithmetic.”

He added: “The dissidence is within your party. Don’t blame us if your MLAs fail to respect you.”