His statement evoked sharp reaction from opposition parties.
Nearly 4,800 elected MPs and MLAs will vote on Monday to elect the 15th President of India, with National Democratic Alliance candidate Droupadi Murmu having a clear edge over Opposition's Yashwant Sinha as over 60 per cent votes are expected to be cast in her favour.
Communist Party of India-Marxist's acting state secretary and Left Democratic Front (LDF) convener A Vijayaraghavan on Monday said that the Kerala government will have a 21-member cabinet.
The electoral fortunes of top leaders-- Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the BJP, Congress heavyweights Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar and JD-S' H D Kumaraswamy, among many others will be known on Saturday.
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.
Congress MLA B C Patil also said the Bharatiya Janata Party is not involved (in footing the travel and accommodation bill).
In a brief statement, the party's Uttar Pradesh unit said, Ali, MP from Amroha, has been suspended for anti-party activities.
The leaders of the two parties have held five rounds of talks since Wednesday to finalise the portfolio sharing arrangement between the partners.
I will continue to remain in the party and serve as MLA, he said in Bengaluru.
Yeddyurappa expressed confidence that there is a strong wave in favour of his party.
The apex court had on July 12 restrained Karnataka Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar from taking any decision till July 16 on the resignation and disqualification of 10 rebel MLAs of the ruling Congress-Janata Dal-Secular coalition.
The MLAs in the letter said they feel threatened, and requested the police to stop any Congress leader from meeting them.
These MLAs are Anand Singh, K Sudhakar, N Nagaraj, Munirathna and Roshan Baig.
There are 18 assembly constituencies in the border district which is a Lingayat stronghold and has been a BJP bastion in the last two decades.
The newly elected Congress legislators, who are staying at a resort on the city outskirts, also joined the protest.
"Why should I not? Let them file a complaint. If they want to put me behind the bars, I'm ready. I am already facing a lot of issues. I don't mind about all these things. I have taken a very big risk. Definitely, I won't say no. I know someone has recorded it. Let him release it. What is wrong in it," he said while talking to reporters. He was responding to media questions about the allegations that he tore the resignation of the some of the MLAs.
Siddaramaiah exuded confidence that the Congress would get an absolute majority.
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 several Congress functionaries, Suresh filed his papers as a "backup plan" in the event of the nomination of Shivakumar getting rejected.
AIMIM's Maharashtra unit chief and Aurangabad MP Imtiyaz Jaleel said, "Our party does not support the statement made by Waris Pathan. The party will seek an explanation from him over the remarks."
Ending speculations, Telangana Rashtra Samiti president and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday said he would launch a national party following more discussions with a cross-section of society.
He said he will be soon taking a decision on his political future and wants to contest the assembly polls from Kunigal seat.
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.
The black bands were worn as a mark of protest against the alleged attack on the Constitution of India with the passage of the amended citizenship act by the government, leaders said.
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.
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.
In UP and Bengal, it is willing to sacrifice its interests to stop the BJP and would work towards ensuring the BJP did not win incremental seats in Odisha and Telangana.
The coming weeks are sure to have a lot of drama unfolding in Maharashtra, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The notices were sent to Ramesh Jarkiholi, who was dropped as minister in the recent cabinet rejig and is said to be extremely unhappy over it, B Nagendra, Umesh Jadhav and Mahesh Kumatahalli.
Earlier, I had asked for 12 seats. At the meeting, I requested Rahulji to give at least 10 seats to the JDS, Gowda told reporters.
In an election where every seat will matter, micro-strategising is going to be the order of the day. And in such a situation, party infighting - in all parties --could lead to unpredictable results.
While Nagaraj made no clear announcement of taking back resignation, the same was affirmed by Shivakumar while speaking to media outside Nagaraj's residence.
Asserting that his government will implement the five poll 'guarantees' promised ahead of the assembly polls, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said officials have shared their inputs on financial implications, and the cabinet will meet on June 2 to decide on the implementation.
Kharge, who was popularly known as "solillada Saradara", (a leader without defeat) faced his first electoral loss in his political life spanning several decades against BJP's Umesh Jadhav in Gulbarga by a margin of 95,452 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
Karnataka chief minister-designate Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister-designate D K Shivakumar on Friday discussed the modalities of cabinet formation in the state with the party leadership in Delhi and are learnt to have shortlisted some names of ministers and their portfolios.
Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Saturday said the incoming government in Karnataka would not only give its stamp of approval for the five pre-poll guarantees announced by the party in the first cabinet meeting itself but also pass an order to this effect immediately.
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.
For the BJP, the RSS' organisational heft is a prized asset, considering the slew of elections it faces this year, ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2024.
Having run the government with a "one-man cabinet" for over 20 days, Yediyurappa on Saturday got a go-ahead from Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah to undertake the exercise on August 20.
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.
