The Bharatiya Janata Party's comprehensive defeat to the Congress in Karnataka where the two parties ran a campaign of contrasts has left the ruling party much to ponder as the two rivals are facing a direct contest in three more state polls this year in the run-up to the all-important 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 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.
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.
BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde sought to draw a parallel between Karnataka's handling of Neha Hiremath's killing to the way West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee allegedly shielded the Sandeshkhali case accused Shajahan Sheikh.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, the CM said, "There is no situation for revisiting it at the government level. There is no such intention, there is no such proposal."
To keep the flames under check, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said the supply of Nandini ghee to make Tirupati laddus was suspended one-and-half years ago, during the BJP government's tenure.
Rejoicing over the Bharatiya Janata Party's landslide victory in Gujarat, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the election results there will have a positive effect on the party's prospects in poll-bound Karnataka.
President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee DK Shivakumar termed the step "unconstitutional"
"The prime minister has said that no restriction will be imposed and that it (wearing face mask) is an individual's responsibility. Whoever wishes to wear a mask can do so. I am not interested in wearing it so I haven't. It is my individual decision," the minister said.
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.
The Congress and JD-S have made much of Amit Shah's remarks about milk co-operatives. 'If the Opposition harps on the statement, it could add to the narrative that Gujarat was trying to take over Karnataka.'
Apart from the 18 members of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), including the Bharatiya Janata Party, seven non-National Democratic Alliance parties will attend the ceremony, going by their stated position on the issue which has snowballed into another political flashpoint between the ruling and opposition camps.
BJP MLAs Bharat Y Shetty and Vedavyas Kamath had taken up the issue and demanded stringent action against the teacher or else face protests.
Bharatiya Janata Party's B S Yeddyurappa will learn of his fate as Karnataka chief minister today as a trust vote will be held today in the Karnataka assembly. The trust vote comes after the Karnataka Governor had invited Yeddyurappa to stake claim to the government.
Reacting to the development, Karnataka primary and secondary education minister Madhu Bangarappa clarified that the award is only withheld and not cancelled.
The BJP and Congress have already launched spirited campaigns for the elections.
Janardhana Reddy said he has not launched it with the objective of becoming CM right away in 2023.
Election Commission on Tuesday directed social media platform 'X' to 'immediately' take down an animated video shared by the Karnataka unit of the BJP related to the row over reservation for the Muslim community.
The new chief minister, if from the Congress, will have little or no time for political administration, to ensure that he does not lose the voter's goodwill even before the Lok Sabha polls. He can count only on one thing. That the BJP may not want to upset him too early lest an early failure should become an added problem for the party in all the polls to follow, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The scion of the erstwhile Mysuru royal family and Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Mysore-Kodagu Lok Sabha constituency Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar does not own a house, land or even a vehicle, according to his election affidavit.
'Siddaramaiah was openly taking on the BJP's communal agenda, which very few non-BJP politicians do.'
The exit polls on Saturday predicted the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance winning most of the seats in Congress-ruled Karnataka in the Lok Sabha elections and the Congress not putting up a good show.
The Prime Minister's charge comes a day after former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi addressed a campaign rally at Hubballi on Saturday.
He also announced unemployment allowance for the youth, as the party's fourth poll guarantee, on coming to power.
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.
'I fear that Karnataka is going to the polls next year and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has staked claim to Akkalkot and Solapur'
According to police, Yediyurappa has been booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, and Section 354 A (Sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) based on a complaint by the mother of a 17-year-old girl who alleged that he molested her daughter during a meeting on February 2 this year, at his residence in Dollars Colony in Bengaluru.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which pulled off a hat-trick of wins in Haryana by bucking anti-incumbency, managed to make significant inroads into the Dalit seats and Jat strongholds.
Polling is being held for 224 seats in what is being seen mainly as a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular.
A Bengaluru court on Thursday issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Yediyurappa in the case registered against him under the POCSO Act on March 14 this year.
He referred to the Modi government scheme providing five kilograms of ration to the poor every month and said, "The Congress brought the Food Security Act, you did nothing."
There has been an absolute decline in voters aged between 20 and 39, compared with 2018, and there has been a huge increase in voters aged over 50.
A case is filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party's Karnataka unit for issuing "defamatory" advertisements in mainstream newspapers.
The move by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge's son Rahul Kharge comes close on the heels of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's wife Parvathi returning the 14 sites to Mysuru Urban Development Authority after the Lokayukta police registered a case against Siddaramaiah, his wife and brother-in-law.
The electoral fortunes of top leaders-- Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai of the BJP, Congress heavyweights Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar and JD-S' H D Kumaraswamy, among many others will be known on Saturday.
The Congress Legislature Party, which met at a private hotel in Bengaluru on Sunday evening, passed a unanimous resolution authorising the party chief to pick its leader.
Efforts to forge unity in the opposition ranks gained momentum on Monday with the Congress asserting that a 'vast majority' of non-Bharatiya Janata Party outfits will meet soon, after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met its president Mallikarjun Kharge and senior leader Rahul Gandhi.
Congress leaders and workers from Kolar have been exerting pressure on the Congress legislature party leader to contest from there.
According to the Congress, 37 leaders associated with JD-S in the 2018 assembly polls, have joined the party so far, in the run up to the upcoming elections.
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