According to party sources, the Congress leadership has been making efforts to convince some ministers and lawmakers to contest, as they have faced problems in identifying winnable candidates in several segments.
In 2019, actor turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent backed by the BJP, won by defeating then Kumaraswamy's son and joint candidate of the then ruling Congress-JD-S alliance Nikhil by 1,25,876 votes.
The BJP Legislature Party meeting is scheduled for Friday, during which the election of its leader, who will also be the Leader of Opposition in the assembly, is likely to be announced.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
While the ruling BJP, riding on the Modi juggernaut, wants to break the 38-year jinx and retain its southern citadel, the Congress is seeking to wrest power to give the party much-needed elbow room and momentum to position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
A meeting of the Congress legislature party (CLP) on Thursday formally elected Siddaramaiah as its leader and the next chief minister of Karnataka.
Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Thursday announced Siddaramaiah as the next chief minister of Karnataka and D K Shivakumar as his only deputy in the soon-to-formed cabinet.
The ruling Congress posted a video along with a statement on social media platform X, criticising the Janata Dal-Secular leader and son of former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda.
As many as 13 Congress and three Janata Dal-Secular MLAs had resigned from the Karnataka Assembly in 2019 thus bringing down the 14-month-old coalition government of the Congress and the JD-S led by H D Kumaraswamy.
While the party's vote share jumped by more than four per cent, the Janata Dal-Secular saw a sharp fall of more than five per cent, according to Election Commission data on the assembly elections.
On whether injustice has been done to Dalits by not giving a DCM post to the community, he said the people, especially the Dalit community, have huge expectations.
Both the BJP and the Congress have their share of challenges, with finding winning horses on top of this list.
Senior Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh will now occupy front-row seats after their reallocation by the party.
With Janata Dal-Secular state president H D Kumaraswamy repeatedly attacking him and his son Yathindra, a former Congress MLA, accusing them of a 'cash for transfer' racket, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said he will retire from politics, if proved that he has taken money, even in a single transfer case of government officials.
Uday K M, also known as 'Kadalur Uday Gowda, was welcomed into the party fold in the presence of state Congress president DK Shivakumar.
The current public mood is that it will be a hung assembly. No one, not even in the BJP, is talking about even a simple majority for the party.
Siddaramaiah even said that he would retire from politics if even one instance is presented with proof that he had made money by transferring officials.
There is no use of the BJP targeting the likes of Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin, directly by the party's political bosses, both in Delhi and the respective state capitals, or even using the Raj Bhavans to fire those salvos from. Successive elections have proved that it's counter-productive, if anything. But the BJP is yet to understand it, acknowledge it, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The incident led to a political confrontation between the government and Opposition in the state.
Cricket climate change to medical practice, dropped candidates have their non-political life sorted.
Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna had on Saturday floated the idea of having three more DCMs in Karnataka and said he would discuss it with the Congress high command, keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
A day after fielding Mohammed Yousuf Savanur as its candidate from Shiggaon in Haveri district, the party nominated Yasir Ahmed Khan Phatan in his place.
Pawar has summoned a meeting of party leaders in Mumbai on Saturday to finalise its plans for the assembly elections in Karnataka scheduled for May 10.
Kumar Bangarappa and Madhu Bangarappa are pitted against each other in Soraba constituency in Shivamogga district, which was represented by their father from 1967 to 1994 till his election to the Lok Sabha.
The stakes are significant for the BJP in this round as the party had in 2019 won an overwhelming majority of these seats, including all in Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, that will go to polls on May 7.
"We have a commitment before the people of Karnataka. Parliament elections are ahead. So, I have to bow to the AICC president and the Gandhi family. In the larger interest of the party (I have agreed to the formula) and why not, because sometimes the ice should break. Ultimately, there is a responsibility towards what we have a commitment to the people of Karnataka and we have to deliver," he said.
The BJP is focusing determinedly on the seats it lost in 2019, with the hope of winning these either independently or with the aid of its allies.
Speaking to reporters after attending the MVA meeting at NCP chief Sharad Pawar's residence 'Silver Oak' in Mumbai, Patil said the MVA -- comprising the Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray, the NCP, and the Congress -- will work out a seat-sharing formula ahead of the Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra assembly elections, due in the second half of the next year.
Raut said that the victory of the Congress in Karnataka has opened a door for the party in the whole country and the election results show that dictatorship has been defeated.
Banners have come up in front of Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar's residences in Bengaluru, erected by supporters, congratulating them for Congress win and projecting them as "next CM".
Here's how some of the heavyweights fared in the Karnataka elections.
The Opposition Congress on Saturday seemed to be on course to breach rival Bharatiya Janata Party's lone southern citadel Karnataka, inching towards the magic figure of 113 needed to form a government on its own.
Addressing a public meeting in Bidar, Shah said the Congress always insulted its leaders -- be it S Nijalingappa or former Chief Minister Veerendra Patil.
The state is mainly witnessing a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal (Secular).
The IMD has warned of heatwave to severe heatwave conditions in parts of West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh during the next five days.
However, the national party count has gone down to six from 14 in over seven decades.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
Modi enthusiastically waved at a large number of cheering crowd, who had lined up on both sides of the route, as the ruling BJP appeared focused on winning a good number of seats in Old Mysuru region, where it is traditionally weak.
The election was necessitated as the term of office of seven members expires on June 14.
What some of our leaders were up to in the last couple of days.
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