Politics

In a jolt to the opposition BJP, two of its MLAs backed the seven-month-old Congress-led government during the voting on a bill in the Assembly.

BJP lawmakers said in its present form, the bill seemed to be in favour of those engaged in cow slaughter and sought to penalise those who would tried to prevent it.

This defeat for Mohapatra, a founder member of the BJD and previously a close aide of legendary leader Biju Patnaik, effectively closed the doors to his highly-coveted entry into the Assembly after a series of attempts and failures spanning 19 years.

The counsel for the lawmakers R Shankar and H Nagesh told a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi that the MLAs wanted to withdraw the petition as the floor test has been conducted.

While north-Indians dominated the central PSUs located in the state, non-Tamils were employed in good numbers in private firms in cities like Chennai, Coimbatore and Tirupur, PMK founder S Ramadoss claimed.

Bringing to end a three-week-long tussle, the confidence motion moved by Kumaraswamy was defeated with 99 members voting for the alliance and 105 against it in a House of 225, including Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar and a nominated member.

The Congress now has governments in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Puducherry. The BJP, on the other hand, is in power in 16 states in the country.

Soon after the outcome, HD Kumaraswamy drove to the Raj Bhavan along with deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and other senior colleagues and handed over the resignation.

For the first time during the current session, the TDP members stormed the Speakers podium after their leader N Chandrababu Naidus speech was cut short, even as the YSRC legislators jeered their opposition colleagues.

Haroon Yusuf recalled how despite having difference of opinion with the Lieutenant Governor on some issues as chief minister, she never let it come out in the public.

A three-member TMC delegation, which was going to meet the families of the victims, was stopped at the Varanasi airport. Banerjee also attacked Adityanath for not having visited the Sonbhadra clash victims so far.

In a tweet, the PM offered his condolence to the family and supporters of Dikshit, who passed away at a hospital in Delhi following a prolonged illness.

The governor's second letter to Kumaraswamy came after the assembly failed to meet his first deadline to complete the trust vote process by 1.30 pm.

A BJP delegation met the governor even as the assembly was debating the confidence motion amid fears by the party that 'extraneous' issues were being raised by the coalition to prolong the debate.

Sardesai, who was deputy chief minister, and two other ministers of his party were dropped from the Goa cabinet recently when ten Congress MLAs joined the BJP.

The appointment of Singh, an OBC leader, as party’s state unit chief is seen as part of the BJP's effort to consolidate its support among the OBCs.