The Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) would soon form government at the Centre, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah claimed on Wednesday as he predicted that the ruling National Democratic Alliance will not complete its five-year term.
Police said 52 people have been arrested following Wednesday night's incidents and prohibitory orders preventing the assembly of more than four people have been imposed in Nagamangala town in Mandya district till September 14 as a precautionary measure.
In the much expected exercise that takes the state ministry's strength to the maximum permissible limit of 34, Kumaraswamy inducted three ministers from his party Janata Dal (Secular) and two from the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The state contributes 30-plus MPs -- a fatal number for the Congress to lose at the Centre, says Aditi Phadnis
Days after the Karnataka governor granted sanction for the prosecution of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the Mysuru Urban Development Authority case, the Congress' top leadership on Friday expressed its backing for him and alleged that the Centre had unleashed a systematic assault through a 'puppet governor' to destabilise an elected government.
Siddaramaiah said his main task was to bring the Congress back to power in the state.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is on an official visit to Bengaluru to attend various events, on Friday met Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party strongman and former chief minister B S Yediyurappa, at his residence for breakfast and held discussions.
It will be a litmus test for the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka when it battles the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) in the by-poll to the eight constituencies in Karnataka on Saturday.
'I fear that Karnataka is going to the polls next year and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has staked claim to Akkalkot and Solapur'
BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu, who sat glued to the television, said the final tally of the BJP would be 120 seats, which is 8 more than the magical number to form the government in the 224-member Karnataka legislative assembly. Although B S Yeddyurappa will be the chief minister once the BJP forms the government, a legislative party meeting will be held on Monday to officially announce his name for the top post.
With most exit polls predicting a tight contest between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in the assembly polls in Karnataka, leaders of the two parties seem 'jittery' over the outcome, while the Janata Dal-Secular appears to be expecting a hung verdict, which would enable it to play a role in government formation.
The members of the RSS' student wing holding their organisation's saffron flag stormed inside the compound of Jnanendra's bungalow at Jayamahal here and raised slogans like 'We want justice'.
'We will win all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.'
With Bharatiya Janata Party facing 'dynasty politics' criticism, following the appointment of veteran leader B S Yediyurappa's son B Y Vijayendra as its Karnataka unit president, party's senior leader C T Ravi on Saturday tried to dodge related questions, and in a cryptic remark said he too is being haunted by certain 'questions'.
"Crores of rupees were approved for temples and he (Amit Shah) says the steering is in my hand. If the steering is in my hand, then why do you feel the pain?," he said.
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 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.
About 58,000 police personnel are maintaining vigil on 12,389 polling stations in the districts of Belgaum, Bagalkot, Bijapur, Gulbarga,Bidar, Gadag, Dharwad and Haveri. Brisk voting was witnessed in parts of Gulbarga and Dharwad where people queued up to cast votes in the morning. However, the turnout was low in Bijapur and Bagalkot where only about nine per cent of votes had been polled.
There appears to be no solution in sight to the ongoing crisis in the Karnataka unit of Bharatiya Janata Party.
The BJP was unable to win any seat in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala besides Puducherry in 2011.
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.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his whirlwind Lok Sabha poll campaign with a rally in Punjab's Hoshiarpur on Thursday, closing out his electioneering the way he began -- by focussing on a region where he has invested heavily over the years for the Bharatiya Janata Party to make a mark outside its strongholds.
According to a statement issued by the chief minister's office, the meeting will be held in Vidhana Souda conference Hall.
The Bharatiya Janata Party replaced at least 25 sitting MPs with new faces as the party released its second list of 72 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls on Wednesday.
Lakshman Prasad Acharya has been made the governor of Assam with the additional charge of Manipur while Gulab Chand Kataria has replaced Banwarilal Purohit as the governor of Punjab under major gubernatorial appointments, the Rashtrapati Bhavan has announced.
Three of the fence-sitters rule fairly large states Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha that together send 63 members to Lok Sabha -- where the Congress or other opposition parties have been pushed to the margins.
Showering encomiums on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for good governance, Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party strongman B S Yeddyurappa on Thursday said the ongoing party national executive at Mumbai should deliberate on promoting him as prime ministerial candidate, among other issues.
With only a few hours remaining, candidates have been hitting the streets with door-to-door campaigns, distributing pamphlets with the party name and serial numbers.
Buoyed by the high court verdict upholding the disqualification of 11 rebel Members of Legislative Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday stepped up its attack on Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj, demanding his immediate recall for 'illegal and unconstitutional acts' if he does not step down on his own."The governor of Karnataka, if he has got any respect for the Constitution and standards in public life, should quit forthwith," said Venkaiah Naidu.
With political crisis in the Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party blowing over for the time being, the party on Monday hinted to the rebels that the central leadership will look into their demand and take an "appropriate action" at an appropriate time.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government has adjourned the Karnataka legislative assembly sine die to wade off the opposition protests seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into illegal mining.
While former chief minister S M Krishna said that he was not sure about his role in Karnataka politics, Prakash, a former JD-S leader has yet to take a decision on his political future, despite the Bharatiya Janata Party's advances.
An expansion of the Janata Dal (Secular)-Bharatiya Janata Party Council of Ministers in Karnataka will take place within a fortnight, state Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said Tuesday.
Taking on the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday charged that "bad governance" and "corruption" had slackened state's progress and a sense of insecurity was prevalent among the minorities.
The Lok Sabha member from Dakshina Kannada met family members of Krishnappa, a BJP worker who was allegedly hacked to death, while his wife and son were grievously injured in the attack after they protested against bursting of crackers outside their house in Bengaluru Rural district's Hoskote on Sunday.
The Congress in its poll manifesto had promised to undo the changes made to school textbooks when the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power, and had also promised to scrap National Education Policy.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar on Tuesday said he has been asked by the Bharatiya Janata Party central leadership not to contest the May 10 assembly elections, to which he has informed the party top brass of his displeasure with the decision.
Karnataka Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde on Friday expressed unhappiness over Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari's accusation that he was 'acting like an opposition leader', saying he failed to understand why he said so.
With the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka facing political crisis, Congress President Sonia Gandhi and newly-elected Vice President Rahul Gandhi held detailed discussions with former External Affairs Minister and senior party leader S M Krishna about the political scene ahead of the May assembly polls there.
Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa moved a motion seeking a vote of confidence in the legislative assembly at 1530 hours. The one line motion moved by Yeddyurappa requested the opposition to approve the motion without a debate. He requested that the vote of confidence be held immediately, but opposition Congress insisted that a debate be held before the vote of confidence takes place.