Announcing its first list of 189 candidates on Tuesday, the BJP pitted senior Minister R Ashoka against Siddaramaiah in the Varuna Assembly segment, while V Somanna would take on Shivakumar in Kanakapura.
According to Gandhi's lawyer Kashi Prasad Shukla, the Congress MP, who appeared before special judge Shubham Verma, said he never made a statement against anyone that could lead to a case of defamation.
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.
Bypolls will be held on Wednesday in 31 assembly seats spread across 10 states and Kerala's Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, from where Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is making her electoral debut. Though these bye-elections are not going to have any bearing on the governments, they are seen as a big test for the Congress and the INDIA bloc which failed to put up a united show in the recent Haryana assembly polls. Most of these seats fell vacant after the sitting MLAs contested the Lok Sabha elections and won while in some constituencies, the bypolls are being held due to death of the representatives. The Wayanad seat was vacated by Rahul Gandhi, who also won from the Rae Bareli parliamentary constituency which he kept. Voting will be held in seven seats in Rajasthan, six in West Bengal, five in Assam, four seats in Bihar, three in Karnataka, two seats in Madhya Pradesh, and one seat each in Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala and Meghalaya. Votes will be counted on November 23.
Calling the action of the ED as harassment, he questioned the timing of the summons when the Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra was on and when the State Assembly session was underway.
The counting of votes for the bypolls to 46 assembly seats in 13 states and in the Lok Sabha segments of Nanded in Maharashtra and Wayanad in Kerala, a crucial electoral exercise since the parliamentary polls in April-May, will begin at 8 am on Saturday.
Bypolls are due in Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
Pradeep (47) was found dead in his car at Nettigere near Bengaluru on Sunday evening, they said, adding that he had allegedly shot himself in the head.
Mumbai police provided security to Patil, the legislator from Kagwad in Belgaum district, who arrived in Mumbai on Thursday and was hospitalised after he complained of chest pain.
Former Karnataka speaker and senior Congress MLA K R Ramesh Kumar on Thursday said in the Karnataka assembly that 'when rape is inevitable lie down and enjoy'.
The Karnataka legislative assembly on Wednesday witnessed chaotic and unruly scenes as angry Bharatiya Jansata Party legislators tore copies of bills and the agenda, and threw them at the deputy speaker, who was presiding, following which Speaker U T Khader suspended 10 of them for the remainder of the session.
The court issued the warrant in connection with the sexual assault case registered against Prajwal on Saturday in which his father and Holenarasipura MLA H D Revanna is also an accused.
Parameshwara said the chief minister had written a letter to the prime minister on the issue, and added that cancelling Prajwal's passport after a warrant is issued against him is the Centre's duty.
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.
Evidence of several irregularities have been detected in the transfer of 14 sites by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) to B M Parvathi, the wife of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, according to the Enforcement Directorate.
The leader, who has been sulking for some time now due to repeated denial of election tickets, said he would convene a meeting of his supporters next month to announce his decision on whether or not he will stay with the Congress.
Karnataka Congress president D K Shivakumar on Wednesday said he has been asked by the Enforcement Directorate to appear before it on February 22, while his daughter has been served notice by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, the chief pontiff of Murugha Math booked under the POCSO Act for alleged sexual abuse of high school girls was arrested on Thursday, police sources said.
He is expected to be produced before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court on Saturday where the ED will seek his remand for custodial interrogation.
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.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, BJP national general Secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam, BJP state unit president B Y Vijayendra, and former chief ministers B S Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai were among those present at the legislature party meeting, where R Ashoka was picked as its leader.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray launched a scathing attack on the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), questioning the outcome of the recent Maharashtra assembly elections and alleging hypocrisy in the BJP's stance on corruption. He also hinted at internal changes within the MNS, emphasizing the need for discipline and a renewed focus on the party's goals.
'These beach shacks were meant to protect the employment of local Goans who in turn would showcase Goan cuisine and culture on the beaches of Goa.'
One of the ministers said they are going back to Ranchi for a Cabinet meeting scheduled on Thursday.
The party bagged 11 of the 25 seats, from 20 Local Authorities' constituencies in the state, for which the biennial election was held on December 10, and counting was taken up today, poll officials said.
Tuvarakere Bharatiya Janata Party MLA A S Jayaram (Masala Jayaram) on Thursday accusing his own party of 'betraying' him, threatened to quit it, if he is not appointed as the head of a 'better' board or corporation in the state, by the end of this month.
BJP MLA Purnesh Modi, complainant in the defamation case against Rahul Gandhi, has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court seeking that he be heard if the Congress leader moves a plea challenging the high court verdict refusing to stay his conviction in the Modi surname remark case.
Janata Dal-Secular chief HD Kumaraswamy alleged "horse-trading" in the Karnataka Rajya Sabha elections claiming that Congress leader Siddaramaiah was pressurising JD-S MLAs to not vote for their own party but that of the candidate of the grand old party.
The 61 year-old leader was the Minister for Home Affairs, Law, Parliamentary Affairs and Legislature in Yediyurappa's council of ministers that was dissolved on Monday and was also the Minister in-charge of Haveri and Udupi Districts.
The final hearing on petitions filed by five disqualified MLAs elected as independents, challenging the Speaker's order, was adjourned till January 27 by the Karnataka High Court.
"The education minister will give reply to the issue raised by Khader, but I want to assure that the government is committed to implement the court order," Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said on behalf of the government.
The controversial issue of Muslim girls wearing 'hijab' in educational institutions, which had hit national headlines last year with a government pre-university college in Udupi banning it inside classrooms, does not appear to be a serious campaign issue for the May 10 elections to the Karnataka assembly.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday released its first list of 189 candidates for the May 10 Karnataka assembly polls, fielding Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai from his traditional Shiggaon constituency.
Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashoka said the 'traitors,' who perpetrated the riots would be dealt with an iron hand and steps would be taken to ensure that such incidents do not recur.
EPS has had its way on most things, alliance-wise. A week earlier, he reiterated that he would not re-admit OPS and Sasikala Natarajan back in the party. It was a message not just to detractors in the AIADMK. It was even more so for the BJP leadership in Delhi. Even more important for the AIADMK was their demand for accepting EPS as the chief ministerial candidate of any alliance that the party would form, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
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.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is visiting Karnataka, said he intended to shut all the madrasas (Muslim religious schools) in his state, as they were not needed in "New India".
Karnataka Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi on Wednesday sent his resignation letter to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa following allegations of sexual harassment against him.
Union Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, H D Kumaraswamy on Saturday clarified that he was misquoted on his purported remarks regarding the United States semiconductor firm Micron.
Leading the campaign in Bengaluru, MLA and former minister V Sunil Kumar staged a sit-in demonstration near the Sadashivanagar police station, amid chants of "Jai Sri Ram" by BJP workers.
