"The truth is that the election system in India is already dead. Please remember one thing that the prime minister of India enjoys a very slim majority. If 10-15 seats were rigged, and we suspect the actual figures to be closer to 70-80 to 100, he would not have been the prime minister of the country," the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha claimed.
These remarks from a legislator considered close to Shivakumar come amid renewed speculation about a leadership change in Karnataka later this year.
The bill was defeated by a voice vote on February 23 in the upper house, where the Opposition has a majority, after it was passed by the assembly on February 21.
Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah asserted that he will be in office for a full five-year term.
Coming down hard on the Election Commission for its response on 'vote theft' allegations, former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi on Sunday said the poll body should have ordered a probe into Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi's charges instead of 'shouting' at him in a language that was 'objectionable and offensive'.
Post-Karnataka, it would be a mistake to underestimate the BJP. It should be amply clear by now that the Right-Wing is more an elaborate theatre than a single scene, actor or play, warns Shyam G Menon.
Shivakumar on Friday called on everyone in the party to work together, abiding by the advice and message given by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge
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.
Shinde was speaking in the presence of Union Home Minister Ami Shah at the inauguration ceremony of the 'Jairaj Sports and Convention Centre' built by the Shree Poona Gujarati Bandhu Samaj in Pune's Kondhwa.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Tuesday said there is no discussion on leadership change and stressed on strengthening the hands of CM Siddaramaiah and the party's government in the state.
Here's how some of the heavyweights fared in the Karnataka elections.
Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday hailed the party's performance in the Karnataka assembly polls as the victory of politics that unites the country.
The accused, Syed Nasru, had cut the udders of the cows in Vinayakanagar of Chamarajpet in the wee hours of Sunday, they said.
The first meeting of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in Karnataka will be held at 5.30 pm on Sunday, according to All India Congress Committee in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Surjewala.
Voting came to an end for the Karnataka assembly elections on Wednesday at 6 pm with data showing a voter turnout of 65.69 per cent an hour ago.
Mudigere's Bharatiya Janata Party MLA, M P Kumaraswamy, on Thursday announced his resignation from the party, after he was denied ticket to contest the Karnataka assembly polls, and blamed national General Secretary C T Ravi for not getting nominated.
The rising pitch of road shows and long rallies with hectoring pitches seem to have exhausted and numbed the audiences, rather than motivating them to vote for the party, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
In a viral video of the court proceedings, the judge was seen reprimanding a woman lawyer on Thursday and reportedly made some objectionable comments.
A formal complaint has been lodged against Royal Challengers Bengaluru's star batter Virat Kohli Cubbon Park Police Station in Bengaluru on Friday by social activist H M Venkatesh.
The Congress on Wednesday released a list of 40 leaders who would be the party's star campaigners for the May 10 assembly elections.
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.
Brave statements such as we will continue to be the fastest growing large country are of no consolation, because the direction of trade also determines the flow of investment, points out M Govinda Rao.
In a dramatic development, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former Minister C P Yogeeshwara on Wednesday quit his party and joined the Congress, which is now expected to field him in the November 13 assembly bypolls from Channapatna.
Following a complaint by a police inspector, the case was registered at Cubbon Park station, they said.
Speaking to reporters after a cabinet meeting, the chief minister also announced a one-man judicial probe, headed by Justice Michael D'Cunha, a retired high court judge of Karnataka, into the tragic incident.
He also asserted that everything has gone smoothly for the party in the assembly polls and the government will be formed soon.
Citing a home ministry communique in this regard, the sources said the accused involved in the murder case are allegedly members of the Popular Front of India, a banned outfit.
Hitting out at the Congress government headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, he said the ruling party has reached "height of appeasement politics," and alleged that it has in a way made appeasement of minorities its "goal."
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.
One Rajya Sabha seat is a small price to pay for all the skills that Kamal Haasan brings to the table, points out Aditi Phadnis.
Overcome with emotions, Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar on Saturday broke down while reacting to the assembly elections results and gave credit to the Gandhi family for reposing their faith in his leadership in the state.
However, the architects of the Congress's success, if the leads turn into the winning seats -- local Karnataka Congress leaders Siddaramaiah and DK Shivakumar or Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge -- were missing from the video.
Kamal has a crisp pen when it comes to writing short and yet powerful film dialogues. But while speaking ex tempore -- and that has been his style -- he looks every bit a confused man, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
'Modi's charisma may have weakened as last year's Lok Sabha poll results showed but in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar, it has not waned.' 'Minus a strong BJP government at the Centre for another decade and more, there is apprehension that an anti-Hindutva government could reverse many of the ideological gains that the Modi dispensation has achieved through its three terms,' points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
In its exit poll released after the voting on May 10, India Today-Axis My India predicted a clear majority for the Congress with 122-140 seats and gave the BJP 62-80 seats. It gave 20-25 seats to the JD-S.
'The result was announced by the officials at the Counting Centre at S S M R V College in Jayanagar late tonight,' a state Information Department official said in a statement.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, former chief minister B S Yediyurappa, IT industry veteran N R Narayana Murthy along with wife Sudha Murty, and Mysuru royal family member 'Rajamate' Pramoda Devi Wadiyar, were among the early voters who cast their ballot in the Karnataka Assembly polls.
While the party's vote share jumped by more than four per cent, the Janata Dal-Secular saw a sharp fall of more than five per cent, according to Election Commission data on the assembly elections.
The villagers stopped a section officer's vehicle which was carrying reserved EVMs for the assembly elections and damaged two control and ballot units each and three VVPATs (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail), the EC said in a statement.
Bypolls to one Lok Sabha and four assembly seats across four states will be held on May 10 along with the Karnataka assembly polls, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday.
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