Seemingly expressing his displeasure against ministers demanding three more deputy chief minister posts in Karnataka, state Congress president D K Shivakumar on Tuesday said the party would respond to them appropriately.
After losing both the seats in the by-polls of the Karnataka legislative assembly, state Pradesh Congress Committee's working president D K Shivakumar and Leader of Opposition Siddaramiah resigned from their posts on Thursday. The two leaders resigned after accepting the moral responsibility for the party's defeat in Kadur and Gulbarga. The Bharatiya Janata Party won the Kadur seat while the Janata Dal Secular won the Gulbarga seat.
The BJP on Wednesday also named its in-charges for assembly bypolls to four seats in Tripura.
The Congress-JD-S government slumped into a minority earlier this month following the resignation of several dissident MLAs. Sixteen MLAs from the ruling coalition, including thirteen from Congress and three of the JD-S, have resigned.
In a major embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party's Karnataka unit, Pranab Mukherjee, United Progressive Alliance's candidate who was on Sunday elected President of India, got more votes than expected in the BJP-ruled state.
The electoral predictions made by the various exit polls about the outcome of the Karnataka election seem to have hit bull's eye. The Congress has, expectedly, taken a major lead within the first couple of hours of counting of votes. But the trend that has surprised pundits and politicians alike is the revival of the Janata Dal - Secular, which has relegated the Bharatiya Janata Party to the third position.
Voting for the second phase of Lok Sabha polls will be held on Friday for 88 seats in 13 states with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala.
In the byelections held on September 13, the BJP's Y C Vishwanath, a medical practitioner, won by over 13,000 votes in Kadur, held earlier by the Congress. But the BJP failed to retain Gulbarga South, with the JD-S candidate Aruna Patil romping home by over 3,000 votes over the Congress's Ajay Singh, son of former chief minister Dharam Singh
There are lessons for the Congress to learn from the Karnataka elections of how burying the hatchet among top leaders and not washing dirty linen in public can help, says Ramesh Menon.
Triggering a heated debate over her candidature, actress Hema Malini on Monday entered the fray from Karnataka for the lone Rajya Sabha seat, even as the opposition joined hands to support noted writer K Marulasiddappa for the position.
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.
While some of the senior Congress leaders are sending feelers to the JD-S regarding power sharing in the seat, a host of other Congress legislators feel that any sort of alignment with the JD-S will spell doom in Karnataka.
Speaking to reporters in Mysuru, he said, he is not giving priority to such things and was concentrating on strengthening the party.
'They know the people of Karnataka will not accept it.'
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
Syed Firdaus Ashraf lists seven states where the Grand Old Party suffered a severe setback.
JD-S leaders are in constant touch with several candidates of both the Congress and the BJP and are hopeful that these candidates would agree to join their party. The Congress and the BJP have recently pocketed several JD-S candidates and now Deve Gowda's party has the opportunity to return the favour. To tackle the JD-S, the Congress is trying to delay the announcement of its final list, while the BJP is trying to downplay the widespread resentment among its party members.
A senior TMC leader will be present at the proposed meeting, he said.
Narendra Modi will take oath as the prime minister for a third consecutive term on Sunday evening as President Droupadi Murmu has invited him to form the government.
Under attack from the Congress and the Janatha Dal Secular, while also battling threats of being ousted, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Monday said his government enjoyed majority. He said there was no need for 'Operation Lotus' under which opposition members of the legislative assembly were lured to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
According to Congress, the five schemes are 200 units of free power to all households (Gruha Jyoti), Rs 2,000 monthly assistance to the woman head of every family (Gruha Lakshmi), 10 kg of rice free to every member of a BPL household (Anna Bhagya), Rs 3,000 every month for unemployed graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for unemployed diploma holders (both in the age group of 18-25) for two years (YuvaNidhi), and free travel for women in public transport buses (Shakti).
The report of the Karnataka minorities commission on the alleged Rs 2 lakh crore Wakf property scam generated considerable heat in the Legislative assembly, where an agitated opposition demanded a thorough enquiry and punishment to those found guilty.
The meeting did not make much headway towards finding a solution to the Karnataka crisis.
The Supreme Court order directing Karnataka to release 2.44 TMC ft of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu evoked protests from the opposition in the state assembly and the government promised them that legal opinion would be sought before deciding on future course of action.
Mamatha Nichani speaks about her political ambitions, her thoughts on the political scenario and her decision to join the Congress, a party which her father, Ramakrishna Hegde, had opposed all his life.
"We have met Governor H R Bhardwaj and requested him to recommend to the Central government to dissolve the Assembly and dismiss the state government under Article 356 for failing to govern as per Constitutional laws," opposition leader in the assembly Siddaramaiah told media persons.
There was more trouble in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Thursday with the House Committee recommending the suspension of 15 members of Legislative Assembly for creating ruckus on the floor of the House.
There was more trouble in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Thursday with the House Committee recommending the suspension of 15 members of Legislative Assembly for creating ruckus on the floor of the House.
Those joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers for the first time include three former chief ministers -- Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Manohar Lal Khattar (Haryana) and H D Kumaraswamy (Karnataka).
The ghosts of Malegaon blast are still haunting the Congress at the textile mill town. After a losing streak in the Lok Sabha and state assembly elections, the Congress again lost in the mayor elections for the Malegaon Municipal Corporation held on Tuesday morning.
in payment of compensation to land owners by Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board.
Janata Dal-Secular chief HD Kumaraswamy alleged "horse-trading" in the Karnataka Rajya Sabha elections claiming that Congress leader Siddaramaiah was pressurising JD-S MLAs to not vote for their own party but that of the candidate of the grand old party.
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.
However, the national party count has gone down to six from 14 in over seven decades.
The fall of the Congress-led government through a political coup leading to a new Janata Dal (Secular)-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition and the arrest of two Pakistani militants made 2006 an eventful year for Karnataka.
This motion is in keeping with a directive by Governor T N Chaturvedi to him on January 28, to prove his majority within eight days of assuming office.
Bharatiya Janata Party emerged on top with 32-42 out of the 66 seats, which went to polls in the second phase of Karnataka assembly elections on Friday followed by Congress (15-20) and Janata Dal-Secular (8-12), according to an exit poll by NDTV news channel. Others were expected to win around 2-4 seats, the exit poll said.
Janata Dal-Secular candidate Jamir Ahmed on Sunday won the Chamarajpet assembly seat in the byelection held in Karnataka on June 2.
Former prime minister and Janata Dal-Secular supremo Deve Gowda on Monday announced the formation of the Third Front, an amalgamation of eight parties including the Left, and touted as a political alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
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