Former Karnataka chief minister Jagdish Shettar, who had quit the Bharatiya Janata Party to join the Congress ahead of the state assembly polls last year, rejoined his old party on Thursday.
Buckling under B S Yeddyurappa's pressure, Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday decided to replace Sadananda Gowda with Jagdish Shettar as the chief minister of Karnataka marking the third change in the state in four years. The decision was taken at the BJP core group meeting in New Delhi on Saturday, sources said.
Claiming that normalcy had come back to Bangalore, Karnataka Chief Minister Jagdish Shettar on Saturday exuded confidence that people from northeast, who had left the city due to "rumours", would soon return and said those behind spreading panic would be dealt with sternly.
In this interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, he also speaks about the appointment of two deputy chief ministers and adds that the creation of these two new posts will not create any parallel force in the BJP, and governance will take place well.
Press Council Chairperson Markandey Katju has demanded that the government reinstate Defence Research and Development Organisation scientist Aijaz Ahmed Mirza who was arrested on terror charges but released on bail as the National Investigation Agency did not file a chargesheet against him.
Bharatiya Janata Party top brass is confident of tiding over the present crisis in Karnataka till the presidential poll gets over but appears to be getting increasingly reconciled to replacing Sadanand Gowda with Jagdish Shettar as chief minister soon thereafter.
The full bench of the Election Commission may meet in the first week of March and the announcement of election schedule may take place by March 10
On Wednesday, senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh were in Bengaluru to oversee a special secret ballot election process within BJP MLAs from Karnataka to choose the next chief minister. The two candidates were D V Sadananda Gowda and Jagdish Shettar.
The crisis in the Bharatiya Janata Party's Karnataka unit appears to be worsening. The latest development in ongoing power struggle is that the Reddy brothers led by Janardhan Reddy has left for Hyderabad with 15 MLAs in a bid to shield them from being wooed by the Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's camp.
Twelve Bharatiya Janata Party legislators were evicted from the council and assembly proceedings were stalled, forcing its adjournment for the day.
While the ruling BJP, riding on the Modi juggernaut, wants to break the 38-year jinx and retain its southern citadel, the Congress is seeking to wrest power to give the party much-needed elbow room and momentum to position itself as the main opposition player in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
This will be the fourth stint for Yeddyurappa as the chief minister -- the last one was after the May 2018 assembly polls.
The speaker said he would take a decision on the remaining 14 cases in a "couple of days."
With months to go for the Karnataka assembly elections, the man in the hot seat, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah says he'll make billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and the Punjab National Bank scam an issue in the upcoming Karnataka elections . In an interview to CNN-News18's Deepa Balakrishnan, the CM also says that Hindutva is not a campaign issue in the state.