Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
He also said the mandate given by the people is to give a pro-people administration and not for "enjoyment".
Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Thursday announced Siddaramaiah as the next chief minister of Karnataka and D K Shivakumar as his only deputy in the soon-to-formed cabinet.
The Karnataka government issued orders to implement the 'Gruha Jyoti' and 'Shakti' schemes.
Sriramulu, after putting in his papers, said it was wrong to think that he was against the transfer of power.
The single judge of the Karnataka high court hearing the case related to the 'hijab' ban in school-college campuses referred the matter to Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi on Wednesday with a view that the CJ may decide on constituting a larger bench to look into the case.
With the Bihar government releasing the findings of its caste survey, pressure seems to be mounting on the Karnataka government, especially within the ruling Congress, to make the state's Socio-economic and Educational Census, popularly known as the 'caste census', public.
A new cabinet in the state will be in place in the next 48-72 hours.
Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna on Saturday floated the idea of having three more Deputy Chief Ministers in Karnataka, and said he will discuss it with the Congress high command, keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Several loyal party old guards were unhappy and had expressed their displeasure openly about "migrants" scuttling the chances of them becoming ministers.
Karnataka Minister Umesh Katti died due to cardiac arrest at a private hospital in Bengaluru on Tuesday night, official sources said.
The move was also seen as placating the Lingayat community, which is considered to be the core vote base of the party with some exceptions in the previous Assembly polls, and also to keep party strong man and octogenarian leader B S Yediyurappa in good humour.
Terming the charges against him a "BJP conspiracy", Siddaramaiah said he would wage a legal fight.
The Janata Dal-Secular, whose refusal to transfer power to the BJP led to President's rule being imposed in Karnataka, later offered support to the BJP.
Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge on Wednesday said the orders and legislations enforced under the previous Bharatiya Janata Party regime like school textbook revision and anti-conversion laws, which are against the state's interest, would be revised or withdrawn by the new Congress government after reviewing them.
The Chief Minister has been under intense pressure for some time now, over expansion and rejig of the Cabinet not taking place, to make way for the fresh faces, ahead of Assembly elections by April-May next year.
He also asserted that everything has gone smoothly for the party in the assembly polls and the government will be formed soon.
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 consultations during his visit revolved around the upcoming polls for Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council.
Five Congress legislators on Wednesday threatened to resign if senior party leader and minister K H Muniyappa's son-in-law Chikka Peddanna was given a ticket to contest from Kolar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, bringing into open the divisions in the outfit.
Several top Congress leaders from party chief Mallikarjun Kharge to former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were involved in the hectic parleys with Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar, which finally helped to break the logjam over the top post in Karnataka.
The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the December 5, 2019 bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly.
The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday cleared the Rs 13,180 crore project by Yuzhan Technology, part of Taiwan's Foxconn Group, at Kancheepuram. The unit is reportedly expected to assemble smartphone display modules, which will be one of the first such units to cater to Apple's growing presence in the country. The unit is expected to generate at least 14,000 jobs. Of the 14 existing manufacturing units in the Apple supply chain, seven are based in Tamil Nadu.
The council of ministers discussed the showcause notice, and alleged that it was a "gross misuse of the constitutional office' of the governor and said that a concerted effort is being made to destabilise a lawfully elected majority government in Karnataka for political considerations.
The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday took a veiled dig at the Congress by asking it to safeguard its newly elected Karnataka MLAs from being poached by the Bharatiya Janata Party as was allegedly done by the saffron party in Goa amidst the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The mortal remains of former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh were consigned to flames at the Nigambodh Ghat in New Delhi on Saturday amid the chanting of religious hymns. The funeral pyre was lit by his eldest daughter Upinder Singh.
The cabinet decided to bring the religious minorities under the EWS category.
President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee DK Shivakumar termed the step "unconstitutional"
It was in Kolar in 2019, during Lok Sabha election campaigning, that he made a remark on the Modi surname for which he was convicted of criminal defamation and stripped of his Parliament membership last month.
In the manifesto for the polls released in Bengaluru by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in the presence of the state unit chief D K Shivakumar and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah and others, the party reiterated its five guarantees: Gruha Jyothi, Gruha Lakshmi, Anna Bhagya, Yuva Nidhi and Shakti.
Months before the Haryana assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party replaced its strongman Manohar Lal Khattar as chief minister with low-profile OBC leader Nayab Singh Saini, a decision that surprised many.
The government on Wednesday approved 12 new industrial cities in 10 states on the lines of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Dholera in Gujarat to boost domestic manufacturing with an estimated investment of Rs 28,602 crore. These industrial areas will be in Khurpia in Uttarakhand, Rajpura-Patiala in Punjab, Dighi in Maharashtra, Palakkad in Kerala, Agra and Prayagraj in UP, Gaya in Bihar, Zaheerabad in Telangana, Orvakal and Kopparthy in AP, and Jodhpur-Pali in Rajasthan, and one in Haryana. A decision in this regard was taken in a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday launched payment of cash in lieu of the additional 5 kg of rice to beneficiaries under the government's 'Anna Bhagya' scheme.
The point of contention is that the three ministers are holding office of profit being the ministers in the state cabinet.
Janata Dal-Secular leader and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Wednesday hinted that his party was interested in the agriculture portfolio in the new National Democratic Alliance government.
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
Amid the simmering border dispute, Maharashtra minister Shambhuraj Desai on Wednesday said if Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai does not stop making irresponsible statements, Maharashtra will have to rethink about water supply from its dams to the neighbouring state.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC have been imposed in the town.
Announcing the fifth poll 'guarantee' of the Congress ahead of the May 10 assembly polls in Karnataka, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised free travel for women in public transport buses, if it's voted to power in the state.