Senior BJP leaders, including Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, asserted on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will complete his full term if elected to power, refuting the Aam Aadmi Party's claim that Modi wants Shah to succeed him after turning 75 next year.
The Janata Dal-Secular demanded that the Congress government should sack Khan from the Cabinet for his racist slur.
Lingayats are said to constitute about 17 per cent of Karnataka's population, and the community has dominance in as many as 100 out of total 224 constituencies, majority of these seats being in north Karnataka region.
The launch of a new party by former Karnataka minister and mining baron G Janardhana Reddy has spiced up the poll scene in parts of state.
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.
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.
Gandhi said the 5 'guarantees' promised by the party will be implemented within a few hours after the first Cabinet meeting.
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 Congress on Wednesday released a list of 40 leaders who would be the party's star campaigners for the May 10 assembly elections.
Leading the campaign in Bengaluru, MLA and former minister V Sunil Kumar staged a sit-in demonstration near the Sadashivanagar police station, amid chants of "Jai Sri Ram" by BJP workers.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 30 of the total 50 seats in the region in the 2018 assembly polls, followed by Congress 17, Janata Dal-Secular 2, and others (KPJP-Shankar) 1.
The 'Overseas Friends of BJP' in the United States has made an elaborate plan to make more than 25 lakh calls to people across India urging them to vote and re-elect Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said his statement on 'Shakti scheme' was distorted and presented as if the Congress government in the state wanted to withdraw it.
Unhappy with the Question Hour being stretched, Congress MLA Basavaraj Rayareddy said the Speaker should 'tear' the rule book if he is not following it.
Sitharaman added that no Union finance minister can play with the Finance Commission's recommendations.
The principal opposition party though appeared content securing 99 of the 543 seats in the 2024 national elections as against its all-time low of 44 in 2014 and then 52 in 2019.
Kumaraswamy reiterated his desire to be the Agriculture Minister.
The Karnataka high court on Monday stayed investigation against Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and others over alleged irregularities concerning the now scrapped electoral bond scheme.
Ahead of the Maharashtra assembly polls, Pangarkar joined the Shinde-led Shiv Sena on Friday in the presence of party leader and former state minister Arjun Khotkar.
'Women' as a political constituency appears to be an idea that has come of age. It is changing India in ways that we only dimly understand, asserts Aditi Phadnis.
Reddy dared the saffron party to prove its claim that the Congress government in the southern state did not fulfil its poll guarantees.
Rediff Labs has developed a Sentiment Meter for the 2023 battle of Karnataka.
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.
He also announced unemployment allowance for the youth, as the party's fourth poll guarantee, on coming to power.
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.
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.
The Old Mysuru region, the community's stronghold, comprises Ramanagara, Mandya, Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, Kodagu, Kolar, Tumakuru and Hassan districts.
More than Rs 8 crore unaccounted cash has been seized in subsequent raids at various locations by Lokayukta. The arrested officer's father is Madal Virupakshappa, the MLA representing Channagiri constituency in Davangere district of the state.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party set for an impressive win in the Karnataka assembly poll, its leaders described the victory as an endorsement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's development agenda and claimed that people have rejected divisive, toxic and negative agenda of the Congress.
A boy's alleged remark that the Education Minister 'doesn't know Kannada', irked Madhu Bangarappa, who holds the portfolio, as he directed officials to take action against the student.
'Both Modi and Shah know the importance attached by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita to self-introspection (swadhyay) as one of the virtues of wise leaders.' 'From the way both leaders are painting the BJP's performance in the Karnataka election, one can only conclude that they have flunked Lord Krishna's test,' says B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Some of them also carried pictures of Lord Hanuman as party workers and leaders assembled at Indira Bhawan, the state Congress office, and distributed sweets, threw gulal powder and burst firecrackers.
Hegde said NDA winning more than 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls would eventually help in mustering a similar majority in the Rajya Sabha, and coming to power in two-third of the states.
Creating a positive reform that does away with an official who constitutes a flawed aspect of Indian democracy will allow the BJP to rightfully claim this as one of its positive legacies, suggests Karan P Shah.
From dubbing voices to putting faces with the help of AI, political campaigns are undergoing a Bollywood makeover. Among the favourites is a scene from the Anil Kapoor-starrer Nayak, posted by the BJP, where Kapoor asks about the Chunaavi Vaade (poll promise), with Arvind Kejriwal at the receiving end instead of Amrish Puri.
This will be the first full-year Budget of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government since it came to power for a third consecutive term in July last year.
According to police, a first information report (FIR) was registered under Sections 384 (punishment for extortion) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) against Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Enforcement Directorate officials, office-bearers of the Bharatiya Janata Party at state and national level, based on the order of a special court.
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.
Speaking to reporters after meeting Neha's parents in Hubballi, he claimed that the statements made by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, home minister G Parameshwara and a few ministers in connection with this case are "very disturbing".
'Destabilising the Yediyurappa government is not a cakewalk.' 'If he is destabilised, then the BJP will have problems in Karnataka.'
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