Ending days of suspense, the Congress on Thursday announced Siddaramaiah as the next chief minister of Karnataka and D K Shivakumar as his only deputy in the soon-to-formed cabinet.
This was one of the 43 cases the state Cabinet decided to withdraw at its meeting on Thursday following a petition by the Anjuman-e-Islam to the Home Minister G Parameshwara, official sources said.
Barring a few, such as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu (74), Union Minister C R Patil (69) and Uttar Pradesh Finance Minister Suresh Khanna (71), most other ministers attending the WEF represent the next generation of India's politicians.
Karnataka Minister Umesh Katti died due to cardiac arrest at a private hospital in Bengaluru on Tuesday night, official sources said.
The Karnataka government issued orders to implement the 'Gruha Jyoti' and 'Shakti' schemes.
The cabinet expansion is on the cards for nearly two months ever since the BJP won the maximum number of seats in the December 5, 2019 bypolls and got a majority in the Karnataka assembly.
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 loyal party old guards were unhappy and had expressed their displeasure openly about "migrants" scuttling the chances of them becoming ministers.
A new cabinet in the state will be in place in the next 48-72 hours.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday ruled out his resignation, following the Governor granting sanction to prosecute him, in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) site allotment 'scam', and said he had done no wrong to step down.
The Chief Minister has been under intense pressure for some time now, over expansion and rejig of the Cabinet not taking place, to make way for the fresh faces, ahead of Assembly elections by April-May next year.
With the Bihar government releasing the findings of its caste survey, pressure seems to be mounting on the Karnataka government, especially within the ruling Congress, to make the state's Socio-economic and Educational Census, popularly known as the 'caste census', public.
The consultations during his visit revolved around the upcoming polls for Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council.
Cooperation Minister K N Rajanna on Saturday floated the idea of having three more Deputy Chief Ministers in Karnataka, and said he will discuss it with the Congress high command, keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Karnataka Minister Priyank Kharge on Wednesday said the orders and legislations enforced under the previous Bharatiya Janata Party regime like school textbook revision and anti-conversion laws, which are against the state's interest, would be revised or withdrawn by the new Congress government after reviewing them.
The point of contention is that the three ministers are holding office of profit being the ministers in the state cabinet.
He also asserted that everything has gone smoothly for the party in the assembly polls and the government will be formed soon.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar appear to have got the maximum representation in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's new council of ministers, while assembly poll-bound Maharashtra also found a significant presence.
The move was also seen as placating the Lingayat community, which is considered to be the core vote base of the party with some exceptions in the previous Assembly polls, and also to keep party strong man and octogenarian leader B S Yediyurappa in good humour.
Several top Congress leaders from party chief Mallikarjun Kharge to former party chiefs Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were involved in the hectic parleys with Siddaramaiah and D K Shivakumar, which finally helped to break the logjam over the top post in Karnataka.
The ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist on Monday took a veiled dig at the Congress by asking it to safeguard its newly elected Karnataka MLAs from being poached by the Bharatiya Janata Party as was allegedly done by the saffron party in Goa amidst the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
The cabinet decided to bring the religious minorities under the EWS category.
President of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee DK Shivakumar termed the step "unconstitutional"
It was in Kolar in 2019, during Lok Sabha election campaigning, that he made a remark on the Modi surname for which he was convicted of criminal defamation and stripped of his Parliament membership last month.
In the manifesto for the polls released in Bengaluru by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge in the presence of the state unit chief D K Shivakumar and Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah and others, the party reiterated its five guarantees: Gruha Jyothi, Gruha Lakshmi, Anna Bhagya, Yuva Nidhi and Shakti.
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.
Canada's Indian-origin MP Chandra Arya has announced that he is running to be the next prime minister, hours before his Liberal Party announced that their next leader will be chosen on March 9.
Five Congress legislators on Wednesday threatened to resign if senior party leader and minister K H Muniyappa's son-in-law Chikka Peddanna was given a ticket to contest from Kolar in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, bringing into open the divisions in the outfit.
Khera told reporters in Hyderabad that the views of the newly-elected MLAs have been elicited and the central leadership is seized of the matter.
Amid the simmering border dispute, Maharashtra minister Shambhuraj Desai on Wednesday said if Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai does not stop making irresponsible statements, Maharashtra will have to rethink about water supply from its dams to the neighbouring state.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday launched payment of cash in lieu of the additional 5 kg of rice to beneficiaries under the government's 'Anna Bhagya' scheme.
Prohibitory orders under Section 144 of CrPC have been imposed in the town.
The BJP leadership knows it can't boast of governance in the state as the Bommai government has little to show. So, the game plan is to project Modi, who will reiterate how important it is for a state to have the same party ruling in power at the Centre, observes Ramesh Menon.
Terming the charges against him a "BJP conspiracy", Siddaramaiah said he would wage a legal fight.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said no village in Maharashtra has sought merger with Karnataka recently, and there is no question of any border village "going anywhere".
Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Wednesday expanded his 17-month old cabinet, inducting seven ministers, and indicated that excise minister H Nagesh would be dropped. Governor Vajubhai Vala administered the oath of office and secrecy to the ministers at a ceremony at the Raj Bhavan.
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.
Announcing the fifth poll 'guarantee' of the Congress ahead of the May 10 assembly polls in Karnataka, party leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday promised free travel for women in public transport buses, if it's voted to power in the state.
The government on Wednesday approved the inclusion of certain communities in the lists of Scheduled Tribes in Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, fulfilling long-pending demands from these states.
Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday took charge as the new Chief Minister of Karnataka, ending months of speculation about the change of guard in the state.
