In a significant move, the Centre on Wednesday announced that caste enumeration will be part of the next population census, with the inclusion of caste details for the first time since independence hailed by the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies as a historic step to help design truly equitable and focused policies.
The launch of a new party by former Karnataka minister and mining baron G Janardhana Reddy has spiced up the poll scene in parts of state.
AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will visit Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh next month to launch his party's foray into these states that are slated to go to polls later this year.
If 74.9 per cent of NRI voters are from Kerala, Andhra Pradesh at 6.4 per cent, Maharashtra at 4.7 per cent, Tamil Nadu and Telangana at 2.9 per cent each follow way behind.
Sniping at the BJP senior leadership has reached a new high in Karnataka. For the moment, there is a truce, but the party knows the damage it could do ahead of the polls.
Citing violation of party discipline, the state BJP has issued a showcause notice to Munirathna and asked him to clarify the allegations before a disciplinary committee within five days.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Addressing the party cadre in Bengaluru, Shivakumar said, "We got 135 plus seats in the assembly elections, but I am not happy, don't come to my or Siddaramaiah's house. Our next target is the Lok Sabha elections and we must fight well."
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.
Prime Minister Modi will visit RSS headquarters in Nagpur on March 30.
Gandhi drove to Kharge's residence and held a closed-door meeting with the Congress chief.
Will the new Congress government implement the five 'guarantees' that helped it in part to wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party in toto or will they now add a "conditions apply" clause?
In the advisory to political parties, the poll authority also emphasised on "clean and serious" campaign as electioneering reached feverish pitch in the southern state.
A day after fielding Mohammed Yousuf Savanur as its candidate from Shiggaon in Haveri district, the party nominated Yasir Ahmed Khan Phatan in his place.
The last five years in Karnataka politics were marred by dissidence, confusion and instability. So not surprisingly, despite an impressive attendance record of 81 per cent, the state assembly convened for only 144 days in the past five years.
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.
Conveying good wishes to people of the state and all political parties for the New Year, he however wished that the Congress comes to power.
Karnaka Janata Party's Shobha Karandlage, who is considered close to B S Yeddyurappa, has lost in Rajajinagar despite a massive election campaign.
However, he claimed that this was a fight to save the party and its ideology and to make Narendra Modi Prime Minister once again.
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.
The Congress would also take inspiration from history as it was from Karnataka that an embattled Indira Gandhi had revived her dwindling political future by winning a Lok Sabha bypoll from Chikmagalur.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah launched a scathing attack on Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his remarks on B.R. Ambedkar in Parliament. Siddaramaiah said Shah would have been a "Gujari" (scrap dealer) if there wasn't Ambedkar's Constitution. He also criticized Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar for not taking action against Shah for his comments. The Congress leader further accused the BJP and Sangh Parivar of hating Ambedkar and the Constitution. Siddaramaiah also recalled the RSS's opposition to the Constitution and Ambedkar in the past, citing articles from the RSS mouthpiece 'Organiser' and Golwalkar's book "Bunch of Thought."
The Congress has accused the BJP of carrying out "one of the most heinous" horse-trading the country has ever seen and said it will hold nationwide protests against the "immoral political destabilisation".
Chinchansur, a prominent leader of the Koli-Kabbaliga community in the Kalyana Karnataka region, resigned from his post of Member of the Legislative Council on Monday.
Of the two rate structures on the table, one suggests tax slabs of 8 per cent, 16 per cent, and 24 per cent. The other proposes tax slabs at 9 per cent, 18 per cent, and 27 per cent.
Modi held a massive roadshow from Someshwar Bhavan RBI Ground in Bengaluru South to Malleshwaram's Sankey Tank.
Three months after coming to power, the ruling Congress on Thursday passed an order setting up the inquiry panel led by retired HC judge Justice Nagamohan Das, fulfilling one of its key promises made in the run-up to assembly polls.
A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court resumed hearing Opposition Congress party's petition challenging Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala's decision to invite BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa to form a government in Karnataka after elections in the state threw up a hung house. Here are the top developments that took place in the apex court.
Savadi would now be the grand old party's candidate in Athani in Belagavi district, Congress leaders said.
According to party sources, the Congress leadership has been making efforts to convince some ministers and lawmakers to contest, as they have faced problems in identifying winnable candidates in several segments.
Several BJP and JD-S leaders joining the Congress ahead of the May 10 assembly polls in Karnataka is an evidence to prove that public sentiment is in favour of the party and it will come to power, its state unit President D K Shivakumar said on Monday.
The Lokayukta police probing the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment case on Wednesday said that the charges against Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his wife Parvathi could not be proved for want of evidence.
After Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram would go for polls this year.
Kumaraswamy's meeting with the Congress chief comes in the backdrop of voices of dissent gaining ground in the ruling coalition in the southern state after two Congress MLAs met former chief minister S M Krishna at his Bengaluru residence on Sunday.
According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu is the richest chief minister in India with assets worth over Rs 931 crore, while West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee is the poorest with just Rs 15 lakh. The average asset per chief minister is Rs 52.59 crore, and the total assets of 31 chief ministers are worth Rs 1,630 crores. The report also highlights that 13 chief ministers have declared criminal cases against themselves, with 10 of them having declared serious criminal cases.
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.
'Corruption overshadowed Modi's roadshows.' 'As the BJP did not deliver any of their promises, people stopped believing him.'
The BJP in Karnataka has claimed that the Lokayukta probe has cleared the party's previous government from 40 per cent commission charges, calling the allegations by the Congress "false". The BJP leaders claim that the allegations were part of the Congress' "tool kit" and were used during the 2023 Assembly polls to corner the then BJP government. However, the Congress government has stated that they have not yet seen the report and that acquittals happen due to a lack of evidence. The BJP has also alleged that the current Congress government is a "60 per cent commission government" and has cited several scams during their time in power.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said if the Congress had formed an alliance with the Janata Dal-Secular before the election, the results would have been different.
They are the contenders, the leaders of parties that will finally form a government in Karnataka.
