Palghar lynching: Arnab Goswami booked for promoting enmity, defamation

Bengaluru, Jan 20: The suspense over chief minister BS Yediyurappa expanding his council of ministers is set to continue until after he returns from his trip to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

Yediyurappa, who heads a 10-member delegation to the Swiss ski resort, left on Sunday. Prior to his departure, he told reporters cabinet expansion will happen only after his return on January 24. “I discussed the issue with [BJP] national president Amit Shah for 30 minutes or so. He has given a positive response and I will expand the cabinet within two days after my return,” Yediyurappa said.

But sources said Shah, during his visit to Hubballi on Saturday, had indicated the exercise is likely to be delayed further as the central leadership will be busy with the assembly elections in Delhi. “Indications are there is no possibility of expanding the cabinet until February 11 when the electoral process for the Delhi elections ends,” said a source.

The development has obviously left ministerial aspirants, especially defectors from Congress and JD(S) who were re-elected on BJP tickets last month, restive. Moreover, while Yediyurappa has promised ministerial berths to all MLAs who switched to the BJP from Congress and JD(S), sources say Shah is only in favour of inducting six defectors (11 of whom won MLA seats on saffron party tickets in the byelections) into the cabinet.

“Shah’s advice to Yediyurappa is to strike a balance between defectors and loyalists. His concern is loyalists should not be left disappointed, while justice should be served to the defectors as well,” said a BJP functionary.

Meanwhile, KS Eshwarappa, senior party functionary and minister for rural development, said the BJP would never let down the defectors. “The party is indebted to them and I am sure they will all be rewarded,” he said.

BC Patil, one of the defectors, said some of them had met Shah in one-on-one meetings in Hubballi. “It was more a courtesy call and the issue of cabinet expansion didn’t come up during the meeting,” he said.

Belagavi, Jan 17: Maharashtra Minister of State for Public Health, Medical Education, FDA and Textiles Rajendra Patil-Yadravkar who had come here to participate in the martyrs day programme of Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES) was detained by the police and escorted back till the state borders on Friday.

MES had organised its annual martyrs day programme at Hutatma Circle here. Its leaders had earlier been asked by the District Administration and City Police to ensure that none of the political leaders from Maharashtra participate and create law and order problems by their anti-state statements.

Patil had managed to sneak into the city through a route which was not manned by the police. He came in an auto-rickshaw to the programme venue.

Police personnel present for security took him into their custody and later escorted him till the state’s borders with Maharashtra at Kognoli on the Pune-Bengaluru national highway.

MES leaders alleged that the police personnel violated protocol while taking the incumbent minister into their custody and they also roughed him up.

All vehicles entering the city from different routes and particularly from Maharashtra were screened to confirm that political leaders from the neighbouring state do not participate in the martyrs day programme and create problems by their statements that also affect law and order along with linguistic harmony.

It was not known if Patil had landed in the city on Thursday and managed to reach the programme venue without getting noticed by using an auto-rickshaw.

Bengaluru, Apr 21: The Karnataka Government may spare its employees from salary cuts this month despite severe resources crunch it faces following steep fall in revenue collection due to the ongoing lockdown to fight the coronavirus, official sources said on Tuesday.

As of now, there is no problem with April salary and we can manage. But if May also turns out to be a wash-out (in terms of revenue collection), then the situation is going to be very tough, a senior Minister said.

Ministers and members of Karnataka Legislature are taking a 30 per cent pay-cut for a year from April 1 this year. Opposition Congress in the state has vehemently opposed any possible move to cut salaries of government employees.

You just cant even imagine, the Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa had told news agency in an interview earlier this month on the economic impact of the lock-down on the state's finances. Yediyurappa had also said that the government is now not in a position to implement Budget proposals, barring important ones, with all kinds of revenue collections having completely stopped following the lockdown.

The government recently said it proposes to regularise unauthorised properties in the state by imposing penalty, and also auction more than 12,000 corner sites belonging to the Bengaluru Development Authority, as part of resource mobilisation drive.