The southern state of Karnataka is inching towards nail-biting suspense ahead as bypolls will be held in 15 assembly seats in the BJP-ruled state on December 5. Votes will be counted on December 9.<\/p>\n
The Congress and the Janata Dal Secular (JDS) had stitched an alliance after the Assembly polls last year threw up a fractured mandate. \u00a0In the 225-member house, the BJP was the single largest party with 105 seats, followed by 78 (Plus, one of Speaker) for Congress and 37 for JDS. The Congress and JDS joined hands and JDS chief HD Kumaraswamy took oath as the chief minister.<\/p>\n
However, the coalition government collapsed in July, within 14 months, following the rebellion by 17 MLAs from both the parties. The coalition accused the BJP of directing the mutiny.<\/p>\n
Among 15 constituencies going to polls, 12 were held by Congress and three by JDS. Bypolls in Maski and RR Nagar constituencies have been withheld as separate cases with regard to them are pending before the high court.<\/p>\n
The bypolls will take place in Athani, Kagwad, Gokak, Yellapura, KR Pura, Yashwanthapura, Hirekerur, Ranebennur, Vijayanagara, Chikkaballapura, Hoskote, Mahalakshmi Layout, Shivajinagar, KR Pete and Hunsu.<\/p>\n
As Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa is ruling the state with a wafer-thin majority, winning at least six of the 15 seats is crucial for his government\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n
The BJP has fielded 13 of the 16 disqualified legislators — who joined the party last month after the Supreme Court allowed them to contest the bypolls — from their respective constituencies.<\/p>\n
The Congress and JDS, which had contested the Lok Sabha as allies, are contesting the bypolls independently. But sources don\u2019t rule out a realignment, in case the ruling BJP fails to garner required number of seats to be in majority.<\/p>\n
The Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP)-Congress government in Maharashtra, which has given confidence to non-BJP parties in other states to explore new combinations and possibilities, has also encouraged both Congress and JD(S) leaders in Karnataka who have dropped enough hints for a post-poll alliance.<\/p>\n
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge, who is Congress General Secretary in charge of Maharashtra, told reporters, \u201cLook at Maharashtra, where Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress have formed a government together. To tell you the truth, our President (Sonia Gandhi) was not in favour of it and wanted us to be in opposition, but the people, parties with progressive thinking told us to look at keeping BJP away from power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara too said there was a possibility for Congress and JD(S) coming together if the situation arises.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cWhen the results are out, if the Congress wins more seats and BJP gets less, the government will collapse, then we will have two options \u2013 either stay away or join hands with JD(S) to form a coalition government again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kumaraswamy, too, said there would be a stable government in the state after the bypolls, but not necessarily that of BJP.<\/p>\n
However, his father and JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda is exercising caution. The veteran said he would rather work towards strengthening his party and keeping both the BJP and Congress at a distance.<\/p>\n
“I have had experience (of running a government) with both the BJP and Congress. Keeping both at a distance, saying \u2018namasakara<\/em>\u2019 to both of them, I will work beyond my limits to strengthen my party,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The southern state of Karnataka is inching towards nail-biting suspense ahead as bypolls will be held in 15 assembly seats in the BJP-ruled state on December 5. Votes will be counted on December 9. The Congress and the Janata Dal Secular (JDS) had stitched an alliance after the Assembly polls last year threw up a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":62952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[17],"tags":[86,76346,111,75388,76928,73581,83930,805],"yst_prominent_words":[29262,20827,28533,81740,20926,3811,9745,50984,3813,48659,83924,59633,3885,48666,47531,3688,4095,4023,24203,21018],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2019\/05\/28185309\/Yeddy-Kumaraswamy-Siddaramaiah.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72199"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=72199"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=72199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}