Gandhi said the 5 'guarantees' promised by the party will be implemented within a few hours after the first Cabinet meeting.
Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa said the BJP was demanding early elections because development work in the state has been affected and various welfare schemes have come to a halt.
The BJP, which rules the Centre, is in power in Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Goa, Assam, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and is all set to get Madhya Pradesh back and snatch Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the Congress after today's vote count.
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.
Congress President and Leader of the Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday questioned Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman over the Union Budget and claimed that the plates of all states except Bihar and Andhra Pradesh were empty in the budget allocation.
The situation in the Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party deteriorated on Sunday with no positive result emerging out of the meeting the Reddy faction -- spearheaded by state tourism minister G Janardhana Reddy and revenue minister G Karunakara Reddy -- held with the party high command.
President Ram Nath Kovind has approved the appointment of a few Governors and changes in portfolios of some others.
Former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa's, at the launch of his new political party, the Karnataka Janata Party had claimed that it was secular in nature. However, social activist Teesta Setalvad, who is in Karnataka, has said that Yeddyurappa needs to do a lot more to prove that he is secular by nature.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader B S Yediyurappa, facing a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act charge, returned to Bengaluru on Saturday and said he will appear before the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on June 17 for questioning.
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.
Kanugolu had also made forays in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh following a directive from the party's central leadership but regional satraps Ashok Gehlot and Kamal Nath reportedly were not on the same page as the poll strategist.
"A new era of development will start from now onwards," said BJP's Karnataka president B S Yeddyurappa soon after the H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government lost the confidence vote.
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.
The BSP is contesting on 20 seats in Karnataka election with an alliance with Janata Dal-Secular while the SP is contesting on 27 on its own.
'In Kerala, we are part of the government and our MLA is a minister there. These units understood the situation that made us to go with the BJP and supported our move. Our minister in the Left party's government (K Krishnankutty) in Kerala has given consent to us'
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.
A proposal by the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) to rename a stretch of road in the city after Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has sparked strong objections from the opposition JD(S) and citizens. The proposal, which calls for naming a stretch of KRS Road as 'Siddaramaiah Arogya Marga', has been met with criticism, with the JD(S) calling it a "betrayal and insult" to the city's history and the state. The proposal has also drawn ire from RTI activist Snehamayi Krishna, who alleges that the road holds historical significance and that Siddaramaiah is an accused in the MUDA site allotment case. Citizens have also voiced their objections to the proposal, and Krishna has announced her intention to challenge it legally.
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.
The Karnataka cabinet on Thursday approved the revision of Kannada and Social Science textbooks of Classes 6 to 10 in the state for this academic year by removing the chapters on Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh founder K B Hedgewar and Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar among others.
Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Saturday accorded sanction for prosecution of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in connection with Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment 'scam', giving a major jolt to the nearly 15 month old Congress government.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh posed questions for the prime minister ahead of his rallies in Karnataka.
The Karnataka CM is facing allegations of illegalities in the allotment of 14 sites to his wife Parvathi B M by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA).
Two-time chief minister and five-time MLA Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy has once again demonstrated his political acumen by bagging a seat in the union council of ministers, despite his party joining the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance just last year.
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.
There is an intimate link between cricket and politics.
Addressing a public meeting in Bidar, Shah said the Congress always insulted its leaders -- be it S Nijalingappa or former Chief Minister Veerendra Patil.
As he completed one year in office on Thursday, the Chief Minister also gave a hundred out of hundred score for his government's performance.
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.
Doddamani has maintained a low profile; he has always worked actively behind the scenes in managing and strategising for Kharge's successive electoral campaign.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, and Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar supremo Sharad Pawar were among the famous faces who queued up at the polling booths on Tuesday to caste their votes in the third phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
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.
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.
'There is a conscious move by the BJP to distance itself from the current state leadership.'
The accusation comes a day after the President's secretariat forwarded the assertions of the Opposition BJP that Delhi was facing a constitutional crisis to the ministry of home affairs for "proper attention".
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.
Addressing election rallies in the district headquarters towns of Shivamogga and Raichur, Gandhi alleged that the prime minister was in the know about the sex scandal and he could have got Prajwal arrested within seconds but allowed him to flee the country.
Over the last few days, K R Ramesh Kumar has made all efforts to ensure the Congress-Janata Dal-Secular coalition stays in power, resulting in him being under tremendous pressure.
Setting the mood for the assembly elections in Karnataka due next year, former Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Friday exhorted party leaders in the state to work together, as he set an ambitious target to win a minimum of 150 seats.
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.
West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee will not be attending the swearing-in ceremony of Congress leader Siddaramaiah as the Karnataka CM and has designated party leader Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar for the programme, a Trinamool Congress leader said.
