The Congress on Tuesday suffered a major upset in Himachal Pradesh at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Rajya Sabha elections which were marred by cross-voting in all the three states though it won three seats in Karnataka while the saffron party pocketed an extra seat in Uttar Pradesh.
He also asserted that everything has gone smoothly for the party in the assembly polls and the government will be formed soon.
Karnataka Congress working president Satish Jarkiholi, who is in the eye of a political storm for his statement on the origins of the word 'Hindu' and its "dirty meaning", on Wednesday withdrew the remark and expressed "regret" if it has hurt anyone's sentiments.
Karnataka Minister for Sugar and Agriculture Marketing Shivanand Patil's statement that farmers wish for repeated droughts in the state so that their loans get waived has caused a stir, with the opposition on Monday terming it as an 'affront' to the farming community and seeking his removal from the Ministry.
Speaking to reporters later, Bommai said: "We respectfully accept the decision of the people. I take the responsibility of the defeat."
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said if the Congress comes to power in Karnataka, dynastic politics will be at an all-time high in the state and it will be 'afflicted with riots'.
Why weren't the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and Telangana -- all of which have borders with Karnataka -- not invited to Saturday's swearing-in ceremony, asks Shyam G Menon.
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
The Congress on Wednesday released a list of 40 leaders who would be the party's star campaigners for the May 10 assembly elections.
The first meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Karnataka will be held at 5.30 pm on Sunday, according to All India Congress Committee in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Surjewala.
'Karnataka's finances are much healthier than the Union government's, which is indebted to nearly twice the extent of the state.'
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
As the Congress marched ahead to win power in Karnataka, ousting the BJP from its only southern perch, celebrations broke out at its offices in Bengaluru, Delhi and several other places.
The Congress now knows that it is the only force -- however weakened it might be -- that stands between the BJP and India's evolution into a single-party Republic. Because, once it is out of the way, the BJP could sort out the other regional powers: Co-opting some, demolishing others, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
The Congress' victory in the Karnataka assembly polls is likely to help the party get its candidates elected in three of the four Rajya Sabha seats from the state falling vacant next year.
Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly polls, Pangarkar joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Friday in the presence of party leader and former state minister Arjun Khotkar.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
A boy's alleged remark that the Education Minister 'doesn't know Kannada', irked Madhu Bangarappa, who holds the portfolio, as he directed officials to take action against the student.
The Karnataka government can have 34 ministers. Ten of them, including Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his deputy D K Shivakumar, were sworn in on May 20.
'Free this and free that, and the voters were with them.'
The Congress top brass on Wednesday rushed former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and DK Shivakumar to Shimla to parley with members of the party which is facing loss of support and risks losing power in the state.
From dubbing voices to putting faces with the help of AI, political campaigns are undergoing a Bollywood makeover. Among the favourites is a scene from the Anil Kapoor-starrer Nayak, posted by the BJP, where Kapoor asks about the Chunaavi Vaade (poll promise), with Arvind Kejriwal at the receiving end instead of Amrish Puri.
'We try to connect people, but they disconnect people.'
To keep the flames under check, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said the supply of Nandini ghee to make Tirupati laddus was suspended one-and-half years ago, during the BJP government's tenure.
However, he claimed that this was a fight to save the party and its ideology and to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister once again.
In the wake of allegations against police for ill-treating Karnataka MLC C T Ravi in custody, the police on Tuesday clarified that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader was shifted to various places for security reasons and to avoid disrupting public order.
The party was reacting to Kumar's decision to resign as Bihar chief minister and leaving the Mahagathbandhan alliance in the state and also dealing a body blow to the opposition bloc INDIA.
It is in power on its own only in three states -- Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana -- with a big question mark on whether it can even stake claim to be head of the INDIA bloc.
Five Congress legislators on Wednesday threatened to resign if senior party leader and minister K H Muniyappa's son-in-law Chikka Peddanna was given a ticket to contest from Kolar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, bringing into open the divisions in the outfit.
He urged the Central government to take this matter seriously and come to their rescue immediately.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
If she cannot recast the party, bring together the factions opposed to her, and present herself as her brother's true challenger, there will be little left for her in politics, notes Aditi Phadnis.
On balance, RG contesting from Raebareli instead of Amethi isn't the masterstroke the party's adherents are touting it to be, but neither is it the blunder the BJP and its tame media is framing it as, points out Prem Panicker.
Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh passed away on Thursday night at the age of 92. He was brought to the emergency department of AIIMS Delhi in critical condition after "sudden loss of consciousness."
Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna on Saturday floated the idea of having three more Deputy Chief Ministers in Karnataka, and said he will discuss it with the Congress high command, keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Several pollsters have predicted that the Congress may have an edge in Karnataka, which is BJP's southern citadel, in a hung assembly with a couple of them even projecting that the grand old party may get a majority on its own.
Siddaramaiah's anti-urban bias, which he does not bother to hide, may become the Congress government's biggest weakness unless it is corrected.
Opposition leaders in India have expressed hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue of the deportation of Indian illegal immigrants from the United States during his recent visit. They criticized the manner in which the Indians were sent back, shackled and handcuffed on a military aircraft. The leaders also discussed the need for India to address the root causes of migration and the importance of national interest in diplomatic relations with the United States.
With the D-day for the polls drawing closer, Modi upped the ante against the Siddaramaiah government addressing four back to back rallies at Gadag, Tumakuru, Shivamogga and Mangaluru.
Earlier, deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who is also the state party chief, also had separate meetings with Parameshwara and Jarkiholi.
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