As Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa gears up to fight yet another battle to save his seat, the 16 rebel members of legislative assembly who were given relief by the Supreme Court on Friday, said that their fight is against the individual and not against the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The by-elections are being held to fill the vacancies caused by the disqualification of 17 rebel Congress and Janata Dal-Secular MLAs, whose rebellion led to the collapse of the H D Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in July and paved the way for the BJP to come to power.
The missive to the chief minister came as the MLAs were reportedly shepherded to Mumbai last night and kept in a five-star hotel to apparently prevent them from being poached for the June 11 biennial polls to four RS seats from the state.
Congress Legislature Party leader and Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coordination committee chief Siddaramaiah said no one would leave the Congress and there was no disgruntlement either.
The autopsy report conducted on Padmapriya, wife of Udupi Member of Legislative Assembly Raghupathi Bhat, has confirmed that her death was due to suicide by hanging. The police are trying to ascertain the reason behind Padmapriya's suicide.The police are now questioning Bhat's childhood friend Atul Rao, who allegedly took Padmapriya to New Delhi. The Bhats and the Raos have been hurling accusations at each other ever since Padmapriya went missing.
In his notice to Santhosh, served at the BJP's Karnataka headquarters at Malleswaram in Bengaluru, the investigating officer B Gangadhar cautioned the BJP leader that failure to appear before the SIT for interrogation could lead to his arrest as well.
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Saturday told journalists that the ongoing crisis in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government in the state had come to an end. However, rebel leader and state Tourism Minister B Janardhan Reddy, who is demanding a change in the state leadership, declared that he had not changed his stance.Informed sources said that as per the formula, certain changes will be made in the state cabinet.
'Modiji and Amit Shahji should see my work.' 'Everybody gives me a lot of respect.' 'National leaders should see that.'
Chief Minister of Karnataka B S Yedyurappa looks like he has more trouble in hand with the Reddy brothers, who have claimed that they have 67 Members of Legislative Assembly on their side.
Expressing surprise over Congress fielding a second candidate 'all of a sudden', senior JD-S leader and former Minister H D Revanna requested the national party for support to keep the 'communal forces' out of the race.
Congress President Kharge likened Modi to a venomous snake on Thursday at a public meeting, which had triggered a row, prompting the BJP to seek an apology from Kharge. Kharge later sought to clarify his remarks were not aimed at the PM but instead at his party, the BJP.
Use of mobile phones in the Karnataka assembly was banned on Friday, a day after the House was rocked by chaos over a Bharatiya Janata Party member watching a zoomed in picture of Priyanka Gandhi during proceedings.
The MES and some political outfits in Maharashtra have been pressing for this demand on the ground that the district and a few other neighbouring areas of Karnataka have a substantial Marathi speaking population.
Chief Minister Kumaraswamy, on private visit to the United States, said he was keeping a tab on the developments while the state Congress attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging the opposition party was trying to destabilise the government.
Thirty Members of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly are headed to South America to 'study' the waterfalls in the Amazon forests.
Pandemonium prevailed in the Karnataka assembly on Wednesday with Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj K S Eshwarappa and State Congress president D K Shivakumar charging towards each other stopping short of coming to blows.
A court in Surat in Gujarat on Thursday rejected Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's plea for stay on conviction in a defamation case that saw him being disqualified as Lok Sabha MP by observing he should have been "more careful with his words" since he was a member of Parliament and the then president of the country's second largest political party.
Indulging in religious conversion with inducement or under pressure is an "unpardonable offence", the state home minister Araga Jnanendra said adding, it may also lead to disturbance of peace in the society.
Though largely seen as an official visit, with less than a year for elections, Shah during this trip is likely to meet senior party leaders including Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, veteran leader B S Yediyurappa among others
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers on Monday amid a heightened buzz about the likelihood of a Cabinet reshuffle following a series of meetings of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's top brass.
There seems to be no "closure" for B S Yediyurappa, the Bharatiya Janata Party's "comeback man" in Karnataka, as he could never complete a full term in office, despite becoming the chief minister four times, surmounting odds. It's also too early to write a political obituary of the 78-year old Lingayat strongman and the 24X7 politician, the face of the party in the state for decades.
The Election Commission on Tuesday ordered the delisting of another 86 'non-existent' registered unrecognised political parties, raising the number of such organisations red flagged by the poll panel for failing to comply with electoral rules to 537.
Yediyurappa termed these two years as 'trial by fire', pointing out that he had to run the administration without a cabinet in the initial days, followed by devastating floods and the challenge of COVID-19 management, among other issues.
The Assembly session would be held as planned and the Bill would be tabled in the House, Transport Minister N Chaluvaraya Swamy told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
The assembly also saw the passage of four bills amidst the din, and Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri taking strong exception to Congress members "unnecessarily" bringing in Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's name during their protest in the well of the House.
A rotating chief ministership as a way to appease factions can work only if there is a credible guarantor, explains Aditi Phadnis.
As of now, it seems highly unlikely that Kumaraswamy will pass the floor test as the BJP has decided to pull out. However, things may be different if the Congress steps in by then and supports the JDS from outside.
He said, according to the party constitution, a 3-member enquiry committee would be set up, which after going through their (suspended MLAs) replies to the notice.
'It is not just about numbers. Sometimes coalitions and alliances have symbolic value.'
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday said the state should stand firmly behind people in the Marathi-speaking areas of neighbouring Karnataka and appealed to political parties not to behave in a way that would hurt them.
Should the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu not make the required five out of 22 by-election seats, or even otherwise, the temptation to poach, especially from the Congress or starting with the Congress may be high on Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisami's agenda, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Rajya Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday saw cross-voting by a BJP MLA while another party legislator claimed that she was prevented from voting.
All 41 candidates from Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Telangana were elected unopposed on Friday after the biennial elections to 57 Rajya Sabha seats were announced recently.
Bharatiya Janata Party nominee S Selvaganapathy was declared elected unopposed to the lone seat in Rajya Sabha from Puducherry, the first time the saffron party has got representation in the Upper House from the Union Territory, while Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's two nominees, Kanimozhi N V N Somu and K R N Rajeshkumar, were elected without contest from Tamil Nadu.
Karnataka Assembly was on Friday adjourned briefly amid chaos over a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA watching a zoomed in picture of Priyanka Gandhi on his mobile phone during House proceedings.
While Karnataka Congress chief D K Sivakumar will be special observer in Goa, party general secretary Mukul Wasnik and Chhattisgarh Health Minister T S Singh Deo besides Vincent Pala have been deputed in Manipur for post-poll management, the sources said.
'Bommai is everybody's man and nobody's man'
The meeting was convened by the party to assess whether its flock was intact amid speculation that some of the MLAs had switched over to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Congress, in its application termed the governor's action as a "brazen unconstitutional" act to appoint "a junior MLA as the pro tem speaker.
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