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Bengaluru, Feb 29: A Lingayat seer on Friday threatened to get 10 BJP MLAs to quit if Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa does not make MLA Dattatreya Patil Revoor a minister soon.

"If Yediyurappa does not make BJP's Gulbarga South MLA Dattatreya Patil Revoor a minister, I will get 10 ruling party legislators resign and reduce the government to a minority, forcing the Chief Minister to resign," said Srishaila Saranga mutt seer Deshikendra Swami at a meeting in Kalaburagi on Friday.

Addressing a gathering of the Lingayat community, to which Revoor belongs, the seer said although he wanted Yediyurappa to complete the remaining 3-year term in office and the BJP to return to power after the next elections, it would be difficult for Yediyurappa to continue if Revoor is not made a minister.

"Yediyurappa will be in office for the next three years if he makes Revoor minister. If not, I will ask him (latter) also to resign, as does not need to be in politics anymore because he has a house, many acres of agricultural land and is very rich," the seer told the gathering in Kannada.

In his nomination to contest in the May 2018 assembly elections, Revoor (37) declared in an affidavit Rs 17-crore assets, including immovable properties.

Wishing Yediyurappa to remain in office for the next three years and return as Chief Minister, the seer said if Yediyurappa is forced to quit, then the Lingayat community would not get an opportunity to have its leader as Chief Minister again for at least 30 years.

Yediyurappa, whose constituency is Shikaripura in Shivamogga district, is considered the tallest Lingayat leader of the politically powerful community, which accounts for 18% of the 6.5-crore state's population.

Though a dozen BJP legislators won from the erstwhile Hyderabad-Karnataka region in the May 2018 Assembly elections, only Prabhu Chauhan from the adjacent Bidar district was made minister for animal husbandry.

The Saranga mutt seer’s threat comes a month after Veerashaiva Lingayat Panchamasali seer Swami Vachananda, dared Yediyurappa to make 3 of the community legislators ministers ahead of the second cabinet expansion on February 6.

At a Lingayat gathering in the state's Davengere district on January 15, Vachananda told Yediyurappa to make party's Bilgi legislator Murgesh Nirani Minister, failing which the community would withdraw its support to the ruling party.

Hiryur is about 300km northwest of the southern state's capital Bengaluru.

Ticking off the young seer, a defiant Yediyurappa, however, threatened to walk out of the meeting if he was blackmailed for making Lingayat MLAs ministers.

"You cannot threaten me saying your sub-sect (Veera Shaiva) community would not support the BJP in the next assembly or Lok Saba elections, due in 2023 and 2024," retorted Yediyurappa, reasserting his status as the community's strongman in the state.

In the second cabinet expansion, only 10 newly elected legislators who defected from the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) were made ministers, leaving 6 posts vacant in the 34-member ministry.

In the first cabinet expansion on August 20, 2019, 17 party legislators were made ministers. Nirani and others, who were present on the dais, pacified Yediyurappa to take his seat and requested the seer to avoid making political speech on such occasions.

"The chief minister threatened to resign than succumb to pressures from religious or community followers," a party official told media.

Bengaluru, Jan 28: The state government is set to allow investors who bought farmland for industrial and other purposes to sell it off if they fail to use it within seven years. The new buyers, however, must utilise the land parcel for the same purpose for which it was allotted.

An amendment bill in this regard will be tabled during the joint session of the assembly, which begins on February 17.

Currently, investors remain tied to unused parcels. Law and parliamentary affairs minister JC Madhuswamy said the amendment to Section 109 of the Karnataka Land Reforms Act, which deals with the purchase of farmland for non-agricultural purposes, would remove hurdles for disposal of such plots. “To prevent misuse of land, the bill makes it mandatory for the new buyer to utilise it for the purpose for which the land was purchased by the first investor,” he said.

The government will also table a bill which seeks to regulate the affairs of religious and educational trusts. It will empower the government to intervene in the affairs of the trusts when irregularities come to light.

“Currently, the government has no role to play when allegations of irregularities and mismanagement crop up against trustees. The bill seeks to address this,” Madhuswamy said. He clarified the government didn’t want to interfere in trusts’ affairs. But some issues, he added, were of concern: trustees illegally selling off the trust property.

Bengaluru, Jul 19: A total of 4,120 new COVID-19 cases were reported from Karnataka on Sunday, taking the total number of 63,772 in the state, informed the state's health department.

Out of the total cases reported in the last 24 hours, 2,156 were reported from Bengaluru.
The total figure includes 39,370 active cases, 23,065 recoveries, and 91 deaths.

"Karnataka crossed the 10-lakh-tests milestone today. So far, we conducted 10,20,830 tests across 88 labs in the state and 35,834 tests today," Minister for Medical Education of Karnataka tweeted on Sunday.