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.
Congress has propped up Vice-President Hamid Ansari's name for a second term and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has begun the exercise of soliciting support for his candidature.
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.
'After the Parliament election results many people are confused and that is why this crisis has erupted
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."
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.
With only 65 seats in the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, do you think the Congress has suffered a big blow from Kumaraswamy's move?
Prakash had initially been in talks with the BJP, soon after he left the JD-S due to differences with party chief H D Deve Gowda. However due to differences in principles, Prakash decided to join the Congress party along with around ten other of his supporters.
Shivakumar was scheduled to leave for Delhi on Monday but cancelled the travel plans citing ill-health.
Beleaguered Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's political credibility will be tested by the outcome of the three by-elections. And cries that he must resign will become shriller if the Congress loses them.
Senior Congress leaders P Chidambaram and Digvijaya Singh will now occupy front-row seats after their reallocation by the party.
He said the Congress not only humiliated his party leaders but also tried to engineer defections and bring about a split.
Gowda has hinted that there might be polls held soon in 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.
The first meeting of leaders of the National Democratic Alliance after the election results was held at caretaker Prime Minister Narendra D Modi's residence in New Delhi on Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
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 election was necessitated as the term of office of seven members expires on June 14.
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.
Ruling parties held sway in most of the 13 states in the assembly byelection results declared on Saturday, with the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies wresting seats in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan and the Trinamool Congress sweeping West Bengal.
Vast experience in running the government and mass appeal across the state have favoured Siddaramaiah in the tightly contested race for Karnataka chief minister.
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.
The former chief minister also sought to distance JD-S's alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the case, amid attacks by the ruling Congress seeking their response on the issue.
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.
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.
Five Parliamentarians from Karnataka including Janata Dal-Secular leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Nirmala Sitharaman and Pralhad Joshi, who were part of the previous Cabinet, on Sunday took oath in the new National Democratic Alliance Council of Ministers headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The case was registered following a complaint by the woman's son, who alleged that his mother was sexually abused by Revanna's son Prajwal.
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.
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.
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.
On Friday, four of the 14 legislators had visited the Siddhivinayak temple in central Mumbai and offered prayers to Lord Ganesh.
At least five people were killed in separate rain-related incidents on Tuesday in Bengaluru, which has been reeling under incessant rains for the past three days causing widespread flooding in several residential areas and turning roads into virtual rivers.
Gandhi, who is seeking a second-straight term from Wayanad in Kerala, in a video appeal said this election is to save democracy and the Constitution.
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.
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.
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.
The new ministers were administered the oath of office and secrecy by Governor T N Chaturvedi in the Vidhan Soudha premises.
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.
There are critics who say the Bommai's government was not able to counter the Congress narrative to paint his administration as corrupt, a factor that helped the Congress surge in the May 10 assembly elections.
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