The party was reacting to Kumar's decision to resign as Bihar chief minister and leaving the Mahagathbandhan alliance in the state and also dealing a body blow to the opposition bloc INDIA.
Shivakumar was scheduled to leave for Delhi on Monday but cancelled the travel plans citing ill-health.
However, he claimed that this was a fight to save the party and its ideology and to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister once again.
The DMK leadership may now have to deal with a demand for more seats from its Congress ally in the Lok Sabha polls, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
It is in power on its own only in three states -- Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana -- with a big question mark on whether it can even stake claim to be head of the INDIA bloc.
Siddaramaiah's anti-urban bias, which he does not bother to hide, may become the Congress government's biggest weakness unless it is corrected.
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.
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.
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.
He urged the Central government to take this matter seriously and come to their rescue immediately.
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.
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.
The case dates back to August 2017 when the Income Tax department had carried out searches at multiple premises in Delhi as part of its alleged tax evasion probe against Shivakumar, his alleged business associate and liquor trader Sachin Narayan, another associate Sunil Kumar Sharma who operated a fleet of luxury buses, Karnataka Bhawan (Delhi) employee A Hanumanthaiah and former state government employee and caretaker posted at the Karnataka Bhawan Rajendra N.
If she cannot recast the party, bring together the factions opposed to her, and present herself as her brother's true challenger, there will be little left for her in politics, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The party desperate to retain power in the state will also prepare dossiers on opposition MLAs to assess the winability of prospective party nominees.
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.
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.
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.
Addressing the party cadre in Bengaluru, Shivakumar said, "We got 135 plus seats in the assembly elections, but I am not happy, don't come to my or Siddaramaiah's house. Our next target is the Lok Sabha elections and we must fight well."
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.
On balance, RG contesting from Raebareli instead of Amethi isn't the masterstroke the party's adherents are touting it to be, but neither is it the blunder the BJP and its tame media is framing it as, points out Prem Panicker.
A division bench of the high court of Karnataka has set aside an order of a designated economic court that ordered blocking of @INCIndia and @BharatJodo Twitter handles calling it "punitive action."
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.
Rediff Labs has developed a Sentiment Meter for the 2023 battle of Karnataka.
This is a brief background of the new Cabinet Ministers.
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.
In the wake of allegations against police for ill-treating Karnataka MLC C T Ravi in custody, the police on Tuesday clarified that the Bharatiya Janata Party leader was shifted to various places for security reasons and to avoid disrupting public order.
With Karnataka Congress chief G Parameshwara's defeat Siddaramaiah, currently the leader of Opposition in the assembly, is Congress's favourite for the top job. Vicky Nanjappa reports
The BJP also went on to label Kaul a "Pakistani sympathiser" and posted headings of a couple of her writings on X.
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.
Rahul Gandhi may also contest from Amethi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra from Rae Bareli, a seat which was previously held by Sonia Gandhi.
Earlier, deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who is also the state party chief, also had separate meetings with Parameshwara and Jarkiholi.
According to a statement issued by the chief minister's office, the meeting will be held in Vidhana Souda conference Hall.
The BJP Legislature Party meeting is scheduled for Friday, during which the election of its leader, who will also be the Leader of Opposition in the assembly, is likely to be announced.
The IT-BT minister claimed that the then BJP government did not merely charge a '40 per cent commission', as his party had claimed during the assembly election, but had collected a commission of more than 400 per cent.
Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh passed away on Thursday night at the age of 92. He was brought to the emergency department of AIIMS Delhi in critical condition after "sudden loss of consciousness."
Joshi said that the D'Cunha Commission released an interim report without issuing a notice to Yediyurappa or Ramulu.
It also requested the police that an 'urgent and immediate' first information report (FIR) be lodged against the former Bharatiya Janata Party chief and others for the 'offences'.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala and colleague Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the Yediyurappa government has no moral right to continue in office any more.
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