With this, the Cabinet will reach its full strength of 34.
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.
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
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 Rajya Sabha elections have again highlighted dissension and lack of cohesion in the opposition ranks from Maharashtra to Karnataka and Haryana.
12 years after he was sacked form JD-S, Siddaramaiah, offered Karnataka's CMship to his political foe Kumaraswamy.
The joint statement was issued by senior leaders of 13 opposition parties, including interim president of Congress Sonia Gandhi, the Nationalist Congress Party patriarch Sharad Pawar, and the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
'The BJP's numbers in this government are almost the same as those enjoyed by the Congress under P V Narasimha Rao when the reform process was kicked off in 1991.' 'As before, the only constraints on the prime minister's actions are internal, not external.' 'They come from his own assessment of the political consequences of any action,' points out Mihir S Sharma.
The Congress fielded former Governor Margaret Alva's son Nivedit Alva from the Kumta assembly seat.
Amid speculations of Operation Hasta' going on in Karnataka to woo Bharatiya Janata Party leaders to join the Congress, former BJP minister B C Patil and ex-MLA Narasimha Naik met Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar during the birthday party of noted Kannada film actor Sudeep Sanjeev, who is popularly known as Sudeep.
The MLAs were upset ever since the cabinet reshuffle and expansion on December 22 that saw removal of Jarkiholi.
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.
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
With the Congress down in the dumps and the BJP juggernaut on a roll, 'secular' parties are attempting to revive the Janata Parivar coalition to fill the vacuum.
"I will personally on Friday, May 31 at 10 am will come before the SIT and will cooperate with the investigation and will respond to it (charges). I have faith in court and I am confident I will come out of false cases through court," Pajwal said in a video statement aired on Kannada TV channel Asianet Suvarna News.
Accusing the Congress of also abusing the dominant Lingayat community in poll-bound Karnataka, the prime minister further said the grand old party had even abused Babasaheb Ambedkar and were engaged in abusing Veer Savarkar.
Amidst protests by some Hindu groups in parts of Karnataka, American evangelist Benny Hinn has cancelled his visit to Bangalore on Wednesday.
"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.
Can Nitishbabu create an anti-BJP phalanx like Jayaprakash Narayan did in 1977 or will his efforts come undone by Opposition leaders' political ambitions and, of course, the BJP's agency-aided campaign of intimidation?
With most exit polls predicting a tight contest between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the assembly polls in Karnataka, leaders of the two parties seem 'jittery' over the outcome, while the Janata Dal-Secular appears to be expecting a hung verdict, which would enable it to play a role in government formation.
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.
Asked by reporters if there will be surprise candidates in the fray from the Bharatiya Janata Party, he said: "Certainly, there is a plan for new experiments in certain constituencies and they will happen."
Both the eight-time MLA Shivakumar and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah have made no secret of their ambition to become CM and had been involved in a game of political one upmanship in the past.
The BJP requested Rahul Gandhi to admit Hariprasad to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bengaluru for treatment.
Deve Gowda indicated on Sunday that they were ready to compromise.
The party managed only 52 seats on its own and many of its top leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Jyotiraditya Scindia were defeated in the polls.
Modi claimed the Janata Dal-Secular-Congress coalition government which came to power in Karnataka recently had waived only 800 farm loans.
Karnataka, which is facing a political tug-of-war between the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress-Janata Dal-Secular over government formation, had earlier made a failed bid to temporarily stall the finalisation of draft Cauvery management scheme.
'I came to politics accidentally. I became the chief minister accidentally. God gave me the opportunity to become the chief minister twice'
If their resignations are accepted, they may even go back to Bengaluru, they added.
Vajpayee had resigned just 13 days after being in power due to lack of numbers.
The chief minister said he has certain compulsions as a politician.
'If Shivakumar and Deve Gowda play the match well, this government will complete five years.'
The ruling Congress was on Tuesday ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the taluk panchayat and zilla panchayat elections in Karnataka as the two parties were locked in a keen contest.
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.
Announcing its first list of 189 candidates on Tuesday, the BJP pitted senior Minister R Ashoka against Siddaramaiah in the Varuna Assembly segment, while V Somanna would take on Shivakumar in Kanakapura.
"Is being part of Modi's 'political family' a 'guarantee of protection' for criminals?" Rahul Gandhi asked.
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.
"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.
In a protests against the decision of Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala to invite BJP to form the government despite falling short of the required numbers, the Congress has been demanding they be called to form the government in Goa and Manipur as it had emerged as the largest party in the 2017 assembly election.
