Jagadish Shettar, a Lingayat leader backed by Bharatiya Janata Party leader B S Yeddyurappa, was on Thursday sworn in as the chief minister of Karnataka. The swearing-in ceremony took place in the absence of the entire Opposition, which decided to stay away.
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.
The second phase election to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly began today at 7am amid tight security against the backdrop of Naxalites killing a school head master and a lecturer in the Naxal-infected Udupi district on Thursday night. Naxals, who were active in Shimoga, Udupi and Chikamagalur Districts, had pasted posters and distributed pamphlets a couple of days back calling for boycott of elections.
The MLA appeared before the court of additional sessions judge RP Mogera and filed a 30-page objection to the former Congress president's plea for staying his conviction, his lawyer Ketan Reshamwala said.
Hit by a barrage of allegations of corruption and intense power struggle among its leaders, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka is holding a two-day brainstorming session to give lessons on morality and discipline to its legislators from Friday.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
The petition, which was filed in the apex court on Tuesday by Lucknow-based advocate Ashok Pandey, said it is challenging the August 7 notification issued by the Lok Sabha restoring Gandhi's membership.
The Congress has convened a CLP meeting on Friday ahead of budget presentation and warned its MLAs that absence would invite action under the Anti-Defection Law.
Contests in 13 seats would attract most attention during the Chhattisgarh assembly elections as they feature prominent leaders of the Congress and BJP.
A Raj Bhavan communication issued on Wednesday states that 14 BJP MLAs and 5 Independents have withdrawn their support from the government.
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.
The 52-year-old Congress leader reached Surat in the afternoon via a scheduled commercial flight along with sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and proceeded to the sessions court.
With organisations like the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, which is a front of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, telling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman they want OPS back, the government is in a bind, report Shiva Rajora and Aditi Phadnis.
Barring a brief lull in 2008 triggered by her standoff with Congress president Sonia Gandhi over the issue of family entitlement in ticket distribution, the suave and soft-spoken Alva's career has largely been a dream run.
The HC noted that there is no reasonable ground to stay the conviction.
This motion is in keeping with a directive by Governor T N Chaturvedi to him on January 28, to prove his majority within eight days of assuming office.
There have been over 300 attacks against Christians and their churches and prayer halls, primarily in northern India, states Aakar Patel.
Yediyurappa said he would decide on members to be inducted into the ministry after consulting party president Amit Shah.
Chief ministers of 3 Congress-ruled states, other national and state party leaders are also likely to accompany Rahul to the court.
'Who's providing all this money to the BJP? And who's providing all this money to the Congress?' 'Where did all this money come from?' 'Who is enabling all these MLAs to be bought for Rs 50, 60 crores?' 'There's one MLA on whose behalf somebody claimed that the BJP invited him for Rs 60 crores. Whose money is this?'
Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar has made it clear that there is no threat to his government. During a meeting with Governor H R Bharadwaj, Shettar said that the numbers are there and he enjoys absolute majority on the floor of the state assembly.
2 office bearers each from Yeddyurappa and Eshwarappa camps have been relieved.
The much-awaited Karnataka Cabinet expansion would take place on Wednesday with the induction of 7-8 ministers, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said on Tuesday.
'We cannot leave our entire unorganised sector to the vagaries of market forces.'
Twenty one legislators from the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka were sworn in at the Raj Bhavan on Monday. While the new cabinet looks more or less the same, the most important exlusion is that of the Reddy brothers and their close aide B Sriramulu.
A sessions court in Surat on Thursday said it would pronounce on April 20 its order on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's plea for a stay to his conviction in a criminal defamation case over his "Modi surname" remark.
Amid signals of disgruntlement among a section of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka over the delay in expansion or reshuffle of the cabinet, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who will be on an official visit to Delhi on April 30, said on Thursday he has not thought about meeting the party high command for now.
Here is a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the two aspiring CMs.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the National Executive of JD(S) held at the residence of former prime minister and party chief H D Deve Gowda in New Delhi on Monday.
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 future course of Karnataka politics may be decided on Monday by a three-judge bench of the high court comprising Justices Abdul Nasir, Mohan Shanthan Goudar and A S Bopanna. The bench will deliver a verdict on the validity of the suspension of five independent Members of Legislative Assembly by Speaker K G Bopaiah.
A Rs 20 crore deal was struck to secure bail for former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, who was arrested in connection with the iron ore mining scam, according to state Member of Legislative Assembly Suresh Babu. The revelations come in the wake of Babu's arrest by the Anti-Corruption Bureau on Monday.
'The central government can stop further destruction... if they have the political will to do so.'
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 Karnataka Government on Tuesday ruled out a CBI probe into the illegal iron ore mining and export scam, even as the stand-off with the Opposition showed no signs of resolution.
Rebel Janata Dal-Secular leader M P Prakash on Monday held consultations with party legislators supporting him to chalk out the strategy of the group, which is opposing the renewed ties with Bharatiya Janata Party on government formation in Karnataka.
A day after the Bharatiya Janata Party released its first list of 136 candidates for the May assembly poll in Karnataka, discontent appears to be brewing in the party with those denied tickets venting their ire in public against party leaders. BJP activists torched posters and banners of party leaders in Herekerur in Dharwad district to protest against denial of ticket to U B Banakar.
The MLAs were upset ever since the cabinet reshuffle and expansion on December 22 that saw removal of Jarkiholi.
While some of the senior Congress leaders are sending feelers to the JD-S regarding power sharing in the seat, a host of other Congress legislators feel that any sort of alignment with the JD-S will spell doom in Karnataka.