Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday took charge as the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, ending months of speculation about the change of guard in the state.
The MLAs visited the famous Siddhivinayak Temple after which they had their lunch at south Indian restaurant-bar "Dakshin Culture Curry" and a typical Marathi/ Konkani food Junction "Diva Maharashtracha". Both restaurants are adjacent to each other and are owned by Dr Suhas Awchat.
Plagued by desertions, internal rifts, and with the image of being a "family party", it remains to be seen how Gowda's son and former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy would steer the party in the May 10 assembly polls.
Kumaraswamy rejected a charge by the saffron party that he was trying to poach their lawmakers.
Polling is being held for 224 seats in what is being seen mainly as a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular.
According to reports Sumalatha, an independent MP, is likely to announce her decision to join the BJP in a press meet at Mandya on Friday.
"A new era of development will start from now onwards," said BJP's Karnataka president B S Yeddyurappa soon after the H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government lost the confidence vote.
Azad and Gehlot have reached Bengaluru and have met chief minister Siddharamaiah and other party leaders.
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Sunday charted out a bigger role for his son and Bharatiya Janata Party state vice-president B Y Vijayendra to make a dent into the Congress and Janata Dal-Secular citadel in old Mysuru region.
Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav died in Medanta hospital of Gurugram on Monday. He was 82.
The case relates to protests near the I-T office in Bengaluru by the leaders including the then chief minister H D Kumaraswamy against the income tax raids at the residence of Congress and JD-S leaders.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said if the Congress had formed an alliance with the Janata Dal-Secular before the election, the results would have been different.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has taken a jibe at Kumaraswamy over his Singapore visit to celebrate the new year, at a time when most parts of the state are reeling under drought.
Many in the party feel it has played a critical role in boosting the Congress' electoral fortunes in the state and its impact is there for everyone to see.
Headed by former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, the JD-S has long been a strong third player in the southern state where the Congress and the BJP have been the two main parties.
He gave the time-line while taking note of the adjournment of the House till Friday after it took up the confidence motion moved by Kumaraswamy in the backdrop of rebellion by a section of ruling Congress-Janata Dal (Secular).
The Congress on Saturday demanded the dismissal of the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka following leak of an audio clipping in which Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa purportedly can be heard mentioning the disqualification of rebel Congress-Janata Dal-Secular MLAs and alleged involvement of the saffron party's central leadership. "How the BJP misused power and money was exposed yesterday. Now people have to judge them," he said. Congress leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah also attacked the BJP, saying what the party had done was "a conspiracy to murder democracy and a violation of the Constitution".
According to several Congress functionaries, Suresh filed his papers as a "backup plan" in the event of the nomination of Shivakumar getting rejected.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar -- contesting on a Congress ticket hoping to reclaim his lost self-respect-- still has photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah hanging on a wall in his home-office and says it is not good to remove them.
He said he will be soon taking a decision on his political future and wants to contest the assembly polls from Kunigal seat.
Dubbing as 'farcical' the time of 15 days given by Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to Yeddyurappa to prove his majority, the Tamil superstar, who is set to enter politics, said that it should not have been done.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka had the last laugh as it won all the three Rajya Sabha seats it had contested in, out of total of four from the state that went for polls on Friday, while the Congress managed to win only one of the two seats to which it had fielded its candidates.
It was meant to be a healthy debate ahead of the Lok Sabha elections but had to be called off due to a major verbal duel.
The party has not applied the "one-family, one-ticket" formula for the Karnataka polls which it followed in the Punjab polls held last year.
Members of the Karnataka legislative assembly on Monday demanded a thorough probe into the death of chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat along with his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor on December 8.
While Shivakumar is as usual contesting from Kanakapura, Siddaramaiah is returning to his home turf of Varuna in Mysuru district, which is currently represented by his son Dr Yathindra Siddaramaiah.
Siddaramaiah, who hails from the shepherd Kuruba caste, holds the record for presenting the highest number of Budgets in Karnataka -- 13 so far. He has often spoken about how he was mocked in 1994 before he presented his first Budget. 'Some people asked, "Can he count sheep?",' Siddaramaiah told a regional news channel.
'Why is the entire Cabinet running around in Bangalore?' 'Why are they making arrangements for horse-trading?' 'Is this not the BJP's greed for power?' 'They have won the entire country. Why are they so desperate for Karnataka?'
The MLAs were upset ever since the cabinet reshuffle and expansion on December 22 that saw removal of Jarkiholi.
The order came after the Congress-JD-S combine had challenged the appointment of K G Bopaiah as the pro tem speaker by Governor Vajubhai Vala.
12 years after he was sacked form JD-S, Siddaramaiah, offered Karnataka's CMship to his political foe Kumaraswamy.
There has been an absolute decline in voters aged between 20 and 39, compared with 2018, and there has been a huge increase in voters aged over 50.
Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday had pitched for Hindi as a common language for the country, reigniting the debate on the issue as a section of political parties in South India said they would oppose any attempt to "impose" the language.
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.
Congress leaders were in for a rude shock on Monday when the media sidelined their much-touted Jawaharlal Nehru birth anniversary event, and instead turned its full attention to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was addressing thousands of supporters in Sydney's Allphones Arena
"Before January 15 next year, when the election will be one year away, we are planning to select candidates for at least 150 assembly constituencies, so that they can start working," Kumaraswamy told reporters.
'They have no incentive to be part of either the NDA or INDIA at this stage, but they may hedge their bets towards the winning coalition in the post-poll setting.'
For the May 10 assembly elections in Karnataka, the following are the 20 seats to watch out for.
"I seek support of all legislators and I ask them to vote for me by exercising their conscience just as Indira Gandhi did in a Presidential election," he said.
The BJP requested Rahul Gandhi to admit Hariprasad to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru for treatment.
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