Jagadish Shettar was elected as the speaker of the new Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Thursday. Shettar was elected unopposed as both the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular decided against fielding a candidate for the post of Speaker
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.
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.
Karnataka Assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar on Monday quit the post, paving way for his induction into the ministry on Tuesday as part of a compromise formula evolved to end the recent dissidence against Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa.
Accepting BJP central leadership's directive as part of the truce between Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and his detractors, Karnataka Assembly Speaker Jagadish Shettar has decided to join the state ministry soon.
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader K G Bopaiah was on Wednesday elected as the speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. The elections were held after Jagadish Shettar stepped down the post to be sworn in as a cabinet minister in the B S Yeddyurappa government.
The three seats fell vacant following the resignations of Baburao Chinchansur, R Shankar and Laxman Savadi to contest the assembly elections.
Shettar has been given the ticket from Hubli-Dharwad-Central Assembly segment which he currently represents.
Jagadish Shettar, who had become a rallying point for dissidents during the recent rebellion against Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, was sworn-in as a cabinet minister on Tuesday.The BJP high command also set up a 14-member coordination committee today to oversee the affairs of the Yeddyurappa government, thereby meeting another condition of the rebels.
Shettar alleged that he had been humiliated by the BJP by denying him a ticket and that party is today in the control of "very few people."
The post of Karnataka Lokayukta had been lying vacant since September 2011, after Shivaraj V Patil resigned from the post in the wake of a media expose that showed irregularities in the allotment of two residential plots to him and his wife.
Shettar said he has not lost his hopes and would wait till the evening.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka on Tuesday suffered an embarrassment after party MLA Haladi Srinivasa Shetty resigned from the Assembly over denial of ministerial berth in the Jagadish Shettar cabinet.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka was on Wednesday thrown into fresh quagmire as two ministers resigned and 11 more MLAs loyal to former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa announced their decision to quit the assembly membership, raising questions about its government's stability.
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa on Monday said problems arising out of dissident activities that recently gripped his government are over and the focus now is on relief works in flood-hit areas.
"Should this be the fate of the Speaker or the assembly," Kumar asked minister Priyank Kharge.
The stand-off between the government and opposition continued in the assembly on Tuesday over an SIT probe into the audio clip.
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.
Siddaramaiah's dramatic gesture came when the House reassembled after two adjournments with the BJP and the JDS persisting with their demand for a discussion on the issue.
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.
Polling is being held for 224 seats in what is being seen mainly as a three-cornered contest between the ruling BJP, the Congress and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda's Janata Dal-Secular.
The Bharatiya Janata Party had won 30 of the total 50 seats in the region in the 2018 assembly polls, followed by Congress 17, Janata Dal-Secular 2, and others (KPJP-Shankar) 1.
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.
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.
Among the three Deputy Chief Ministers are Govind Karjol, who has also been given the charge of PWD and Social welfare; Ashwath Narayan the portfolio of Higher Education, IT & BT, Science and Technology; and Laxman Savadi with Transport department.
Opposition parties continued their dharna for the third day on Thursday in the state assembly, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the mysterious death of an upright IAS officer, forcing its adjournment till March 23, as protests over the death persisted across the state.
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.
Thirty Members of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly are headed to South America to 'study' the waterfalls in the Amazon forests.
While the Congress has convened a meeting of all its MLAs on Wednesday to take stock of the evolving situation, the BJP legislators have been shifted to Haryana in an attempt to keep the flock together and thwart any poaching attempt by the Congress-JDS combine.
As the House resumed its sitting an hour late, the Speaker made it clear, "The debate should start now. Everybody is watching us. Please don't make me a scapegoat. Let us reach our goal," stressing that the process should reach finality on Monday.
As the 35-year-old IAS officer D K Ravi's death rocked the Assembly with public pressure also building up for a CBI probe, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the Crime Investigation Department would probe the case to unravel the "truth" -- whether it was a suicide or murder or due to "some other" reasons.