If the party's members aren't sure what it stands for, see no path to wealth or power, and endure control by a dynasty, which, almighty as it is within the party, cannot get them the votes, they are likely to explore options, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Ahead of cabinet reshuffle and expansion of the 32-month-old Bharatiya Janata Party ministry on Wednesday, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa sacked three ministers, including Gulihatti D Shekar, who had threatened to commit suicide if axed.
To up the ante of its ongoing poll campaign in Karnataka, the Congress is planning to release a 'chargesheet' to document all the 'wrong-doings' of leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Janata Dal-Secular leader H D Kumaraswamy said that his party is expected to take a "hit" in up to 25 assembly segments, where it had chances of winning, due to financial crunch, in the Karnataka elections held on Wednesday.
Member of Parliament Rajeev Chandrasekhar, while discussing the elections says in this interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa that the BJP will look back at their term as a squandered opportunity because of personal ambitions and dissidence.
Amit Shah wants to increase the party's nationwide vote share by at least 10 per cent from the 37.7 per cent it secured five years ago and ensure above 50 per cent vote share in the states where it came close to that benchmark, but couldn't cross it.
The Congress has consciously contested on a lesser number of seats in this Lok Sabha election as part of a strategy to keep the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) together and defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has said.
In a major embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party's Karnataka unit, Pranab Mukherjee, United Progressive Alliance's candidate who was on Sunday elected President of India, got more votes than expected in the BJP-ruled state.
On the issue of whether chapters related to the first Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Keshav Baliram Hedgewar are being removed in Karnataka, he said India is a land of diversity.
What some of our leaders were up to on Thursday, September 7, 2023.
A couple of independent MLAs led by Vatal Nagraj of the Vatal party said that it is not correct to form the government especially when a petition seeking disqualification of the JD-S MLAs is pending before the speaker.
Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar is optimistic about the Bharatiya Janata Party's chances in the forthcoming assembly elections.
Amid stepped-up pressure on him by the BJP-JD(S) combine to consider its claim for government formation in Karnataka, Governor Rameshwar Thakur on Sunday said he was yet to take a decision in this regard
With parliamentary elections round the corner, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka 'poached' two MLAs each from the Congress and the Janata Dal (S) in the last three days. While the number of new entrants into the BJP stands at four, party sources told rediff.com that the number is likely to go up to at least 10 as feelers have already been sent to the Siddaramaiah camp.
Chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.
Dissident Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, campaigning for Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's ouster, on Saturday discussed the latest developments in the crisis in the party with Assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar, who has emerged a rallying point for the rebels, in Bengaluru.
Attacking Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa in the wake of the Lokayukta indicting him on the illegal mining issue, Left parties on Thursday demanded his resignation, saying the Bharatiya Janata Party leader has no moral authority to continue in his office.
Yeddyurappa, 74, an influential Lingayat leader, had led the saffron party to its maiden victory in the southern state in 2008, but was forced to resign following charges of corruption against him.
This time Modi has no emotive message to take to the stump. Muscular nationalism doesn't work against the backdrop of China's successive inroads into Indian territory. Rising prices is a sore point that cuts across class and caste barriers; unprecedented levels of unemployment has the youth in a ferment. This has reduced the BJP campaign to a laundry list of recycled grievances and thinly veiled communal appeals, neither of which are working as well as they have in the past, argues Prem Panicker.
The ruling party legislators have expressed serious reservations about MLCs not elected by the people being made ministers, lack of representation to certain regions, with most ministers still from Bengaluru and Belagavi districts and also on their 'seniority or sacrifice' not being considered.
If the Congress is contesting fewer seats than ever before, the BJP is set to contest its highest-ever number of Lok Sabha seats.
"If the FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) report proves that the slogan raised in favour of Pakistan is true, serious action will be taken in this regard. There is no question of protecting those who raised slogans in favour of Pakistan," the Chief Minister told reporters.
Condemning the attack on students at a home-stay in Mangalore allegedly by members of the Hindu Jagran Vedike, the Congress on Monday said intolerance and violence has been on the rise in Karnataka ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2008.
When the Bharatiya Janata Party's Mukesh Dalal was declared elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha from Surat on Monday, he became the first candidate to achieve the feat from Gujarat since its formation 64 years ago though the erstwhile state of Saurashtra saw a similar instance in 1951.
Jeetega Bharat has selected 125 Lok Sabha seats across the country where it will assist the Opposition alliance.
'Union Budgets are often used as political instruments and that was the intention of this government too.' 'But while the exercise has settled two fronts, it has left open several others and this has the potential to aggravate with time,' predicts Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
"The Congress have gone and made promises in Punjab, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that they never fulfilled," Rajeev Chandrasekhar claimed.
The assault allegedly took place over playing Hanuman chalisa, a Hindu devotional hymn in praise of lord Hanuman, at a shop in central Bengaluru area.
Troubled times for the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka seem to have come to an end as the 11 rebel members of legislative assembly have decided to be part of the B S Yeddyurappa government. After nearly two days of negotiations with rebel MLAs in New Delhi, it was decided that the time has come to provide a stable government in Karnataka.On Sunday, the rebel legislators stated that they had no demands from the ruling BJP government.
In the run-up to the Karnataka assembly elections, neither the Congress nor the Bharatiya Janata Party has left any stone unturned. Both parties have ensured that their star leaders --- Congress's Rahul Gandhi and BJP's Narendra Modi -- campaign in the state
After the conclusion of the mammoth rally by former Chief Minister B S Yedyurappa at Haveri in north Karnataka, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka has said that there was no danger to their government, and it would complete its full term.
U T Khader of Congress on Tuesday won the Ullal Assembly seat in Karnataka, defeating his nearest rival Chandrasekhara Uchil of Bharatiya Janata Party by a margin of 8,032 votes, official sources said.
Judging by the narco analysis report of Mohammed Asif, the medical student recently arrested in the state, it does seem so. Based on this report, Intelligence Bureau officials told rediff.com that leaders of the banned SIMI are having second thoughts about making Karnataka their base
A week after snapping his four decade old association with BJP, former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Thursday dubbed it 'a bigger evil' than Congress and Janata Dal-Secular and vowed never to return to his former party.
Bommai on Friday met BJP veteran B S Yediyurappa along with other party leaders, including ministers Murugesh Nirani, Byrathi Basavaraj, party MP Lehar Singh Siroya and A T Ramaswamy, at the former chief minister's residence.
Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said the state has no plans to follow in Gujarat's footsteps and ban the book. He was speaking at a press conference on the just concluded by-elections in Karnataka.
The Bharatiya Janata Party announced a major organisational reshuffle in the party, appointing Hindu hardliner Keshav Maurya and former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa as state party presidents in Uttar Pradesh and Karntaka respectively.
Hegde said NDA winning more than 400 seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls would eventually help in mustering a similar majority in the Rajya Sabha, and coming to power in two-third of the states.
If you want to know what just happened in the state but were lost in the political quagmire, do not worry.
In his report, he blames the Karnataka government entirely for the church attack fiasco. In this interview with rediff.com's Vicky Nanjappa, Justice M F Saldanha says that there is not a single incident of conversion that has taken place in Karnataka. He further goes on to add that Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa holds a public office and cannot continue to behave like a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha pracharak.