Siddaramaiah

The 75-year-old leader got 1,19,430 votes against 73,424 polled by his BJP rival and influential Lingayat leader V Somanna.

He also hoped that former Congress president Rahul Gandhi would become the Prime Minister.

“We are confident that we are going to get a majority, and we wont be needing any other party’s alliance. In the interest of the state, my father should become the CM,” Yathindra Siddaramaiah has said.

The electoral outcome in Varuna will clearly have a bearing on the state’s political landscape post these elections.

In an interview to PTI Video, the excerpts of which were released on Monday, he further said there was nothing wrong in state Congress President DK Shivakumar also aspiring for the chief minister’s post in the event of the party winning the May 10 Assembly polls, as ”healthy competition” was fine.

A Twitter spat occured between Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and Congress' Siddaramaiah on the evening of April 18 over the former Karnataka Chief Minister's remarks on the safety of 31 tribals belonging to the Hakki Pikki community of Karnataka, stranded in Sudan.

Siddaramaiah said that the state’s milk production has been affected since the day the union cooperative minister spoke about the possibility of a merger between KMF and Gujarat’s dairy-based cooperative society Amul.

He said he wants to contest from Kolar too along with Varuna, if the party agrees. The Congress earlier in the day announced its first list of 124 candidates for the polls, due by May, which included the announcement of Siddaramiah’s candidacy from Varuna.

"I have decided to be a candidate for the next election from Kolar," Siddaramaiah said at the party workers meeting in Kolar, amid loud cheers from the crowd.

Addressing reporters at the airport here, he said eight moral policing incidents have been reported in Dakshina Kannada in the recent past. Condemning such acts by anti-social elements, he said strict action should be taken against those involved in moral policing.

The state government had recently promulgated an ordinance enhancing reservation for SCs from 15 to 17 per cent and for STs from 3 to 7 per cent.

The opposition Congress, which has taken up the police sub-inspector recruitment scam to target the BJP government in Karnataka and sought the resignation of the state’s Home Minister, was quick to react.

In a series of tweets, the Congress stalwart came down heavily on the BJP, particularly Amit Shah.

Because of this scheme in Karnataka, not only did the state's farmers end up earning Rs 6 extra for per litre of milk, but consumers in Bengaluru also ended up paying Rs 14 per litre less for toned milk than those in other metropolitan cities.

Praveen Nettar, a Zilla BJP Yuva Morcha committee member, was hacked to death in front of his broiler shop at Bellare in Dakshina Kannada district by three bike-borne miscreants on Tuesday night.

The PM's visit comes at a time when political atmosphere is beginning to heat up in the state ahead of the assembly election next year, in which the ruling BJP as well as opposition Congress have set a target of winning over 150 seats in the 255-member assembly.

A jail term of three to five years and a fine of Rs 25,000 has been proposed for those violating the law in the case of people from general categories, and a jail term of three to 10 years and a fine of Rs 50,000 for those converting minors, women or persons from SC/ST communities.

"High Command will decide. Congress party is a national party. Who made Basavaraj Bommai the CM? Did MLAs do it? It was the (BJP) high command and RSS which decided. Similarly, we too have the high command," Siddaramaiah said in response to a question on whether he will become CM if Congress wins assembly polls.

Speaking to reporters, Basavaraj Bommai said, because of the Macaulay's education policy adopted by the Congress during their rule, India was deprived of opportunities to compete at the global level.

The Chief Minister's statement came as the Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah quoted Swamy's February 2, 2021 tweet, which read, 'Petrol Rs 93 in Ram's India, Rs 53 in Sita's Nepal and Rs 51 in Ravan's Lanka.'