Bengaluru, March 18 (IANS): Senior Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday petitioned the Karnataka High Court for its permission to meet the 16 rebel Congress legislators staying at a resort in the city's northern suburb, an official said.

"As the police did not allow Singh to meet his party MLAs staying at the resort in Yelahanka, he has approached the High Court for permission to meet them," a party official told IANS here.

Madhya Pradesh Congress' rebel lawmakers have however refused to meet Digvijaya Singh and requested the police not to allow him and his aides inside the Ramada resort to interact with them.

"As the party's candidate for the March 26 Rajya Sabha by-election in Bhopal, I have every right to meet my party's legislators to seek their vote in my favour. Unfortunately, the local police and the ruling BJP in the southern state are not allowing me to meet them," said Singh in his writ petition to the court.

Earlier, Singh met state director-general of police (DGP) Praveen Sood along with the Karnataka Congress unit president D.K. Shivakumar, some Madhya Pradesh cabinet ministers and legislators and complained to him that they was denied entry into the resort to meet the rebels.

Though all the 22 rebels resigned from their Assembly segments, MP Assembly Speaker Narmada Prasad Prajapati accepted only six of the resignations of those who were ministers in the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government.

Digvijaya Singh, who flew into the city earlier in the day from Bhopal on a chartered flight, was taken into preventive custody near the resort when he tried to barge into it.

Local police, which is providing security to the rebels as sought by them, whisked away Digvijaya Singh and his aides to the local police station for detention.

The rebels, who owe allegiance to Gwalior royal scion Jyotiraditya Scindia who joined the BJP on March 11 after quitting the Congress, said they were not captives of anybody and were staying at the resort of their own free will.