Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday ruled out his resignation, following the Governor granting sanction to prosecute him, in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment 'scam', and said he had done no wrong to step down.
Rediff Labs has developed a Sentiment Meter for the 2023 battle of Karnataka.
A proposal by the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) to rename a stretch of road in the city after Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has sparked strong objections from the opposition JD(S) and citizens. The proposal, which calls for naming a stretch of KRS Road as 'Siddaramaiah Arogya Marga', has been met with criticism, with the JD(S) calling it a "betrayal and insult" to the city's history and the state. The proposal has also drawn ire from RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna, who alleges that the road holds historical significance and that Siddaramaiah is an accused in the MUDA site allotment case. Citizens have also voiced their objections to the proposal, and Krishna has announced her intention to challenge it legally.
Party stalwarts like Dharam Singh and Mallikarjun Kharge, however, seem to have no problem with the Congress teaming up with the JD-S, as they feel that their main efforts should be directed towards preventing the BJP from coming to power.
Accusing Bharatiya Janata Party of attempting 'Operation Kamala' to destabalise his government, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday asserted that they will not be successful in their efforts, as none of the Congress legislators will fall victim to it.
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.
The state has also been battered by administrative chaos due to political instability in the coalition era notwithstanding the Congress-Janata Dal Secular and JDS-BJP dispensations' claims of having ensured development.
The new entrants will be welcomed into the party by All India Congress Committee general secretary Prithviraj Chavan in the KPCC office, party state general secretary M Ramachandrappa told PTI in Bangalore.
Nitish slammed the opposition and expressed confidence that they will be defeated in the next Lok Sabha elections.
The court remanded him to judicial custody for seven days till May 14.
The Nationalist Congress Party has claimed all the 28 Congress corporators in Malegaon city in Maharashtra's Nashik district, including the mayor, crossed over to the party on Thursday.
The Janata Dal [Secular] is expected to make a last ditch effort to persuade the Congress to accept its demand that it should lead the coalition government with Siddaramaiah as the chief minister.
The date for a meeting between Sonia Gandhi and Gowda has not yet been set.
Among the national parties, the Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Communist Party of India-Marxist opposed the proposal, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the National People's Party supported it.
Two-time chief minister and five-time MLA Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy has once again demonstrated his political acumen by bagging a seat in the union council of ministers, despite his party joining the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance just last year.
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.
This time, aspiring candidates are presenting neat applications. A bio-data, running into a minimum of four pages and mentioning all their credentials, letters of recommendation and several papers mentioning their loyalty towards their respective party. However, in Karnataka, at least this time, it is very evident that the elections are going to be fought mainly on the caste factor.
BSR Party chief Sriramulu has claimed that he has the support of over 20 BJP MLAs. He would need just ten MLAs from the BJP to cross vote in order to defeat Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda reports Vicky Nanjappa.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah directed officials on Saturday to immediately retract all notices sent to farmers regarding Waqf land.
The election was necessitated as the term of office of seven members expires on June 14.
The new ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor T N Chaturvedi in the Vidhan Soudha premises.
Sudhakar and Somashekar were earlier with the Congress. They were among the 17 Congress-Janata Dal Secular legislators who quit and defected to BJP that led to the collapse of the coalition government and paved the way for BJP to come to power.
On Friday, four of the 14 legislators had visited the Siddhivinayak temple in central Mumbai and offered prayers to Lord Ganesh.
There seems to be a wave of uncertainity in the state of Karnataka on whether JD-S will hand over power to its coalition partner, the BJP on October 3.
Senior Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh will now occupy front-row seats after their reallocation by the party.
Shivakumar was scheduled to leave for Delhi on Monday but cancelled the travel plans citing ill-health.
Asserting that the JD-S does not practice opportunistic politics, Gowda while defending the decision to ally with the BJP said, "This party has to be saved, which has been his pain and struggle for decades, and there is no selfishness in this....I took the decision."
Future Gaming of lottery king Santiago Martin was the biggest purchaser of electoral bonds at Rs 1,368 crore, of which nearly 37 percent went to the DMK.
Former leader of the Janata Dal-Secular M P Prakash will officially be a Congressman on February 27. He will be formally inducted into the party at a Youth Congress rally to be held in Bangalore, which will be presided over by Rahul Gandhi.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and a strong team of Union ministers figure in the list of the party's 40 star campaigners for Karnataka assembly elections next month.
With 103 members belonging to the BJP, the Karnataka assembly will witness a balance it has never seen.
Vast experience in running the government and mass appeal across the state have favoured Siddaramaiah in the tightly contested race for Karnataka chief minister.
The Congress claimed that the BJP was "trying hard" to get their party's MLAs on their side".
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Congress' chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and senior leader Jairam Ramesh were among the 10 candidates elected to the Rajya Sabha on Friday from Karnataka, Rajasthan and Haryana, while counting was underway in Maharashtra after an eight-hour delay due to wrangling by rival parties over alleged breach of voting rules.
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.
Ex-prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular likely to play the kingmaker if no party gets the majority.
'Blanket protection to MLAs, who are driven not by ideology but by far baser concerns, is unheard-of'
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance was surging ahead in two southern states -- Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka -- while the respective blocs led by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu and Congress in Kerala were on their way for another excellent show, going by the latest trends emerging from the counting of voted polled in the just concluded Lok Sabha polls.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday appeared to be warming up to the Bharatiya Janata Party, saying that "a new chapter has to begin to control looters" as he targeted the Congress government alleging corruption.
