Earlier today, I wrote about some theoretical aspects regarding ministry formation - talking about incentivising, regional/community balance, etc. Here are some pertinent observations about the ministry itself.

• There have been some rumblings about three leaders from Bellary (two Reddy brothers and Sriramulu) who have less than ten years in the ( Read more... )

So Yeddyurappa has been finally sworn in as the CM of Karnataka, this time hopefully for a longer period. Some 29 people have already been sworn in with him, leaving just four more slots (there is a limit of 34 on the size of the ministry). Trouble has already started brewing as some senior leaders and long-term MLAs (such as Jagadish Shetter, ( Read more... )

A couple of months before the elections, the Congress realized that the absolute non-performance of the Dharam Singh government might prove costly to it. In a quick move, they asked S M Krishna to step down from the Maharashtra Governorship and to take over the campaign in Karnataka.

However, they stopped short of naming anyone as their chief ( Read more... )

It seems like.

They decided to extrapolate based on one data point - Tejaswini Sriramesh beating Deve Gowda - or there might be another which I can't recall right now and they came to the wonderful conclusion that the Deve Gowda family will get defeated when faced with women candidates. They even got an astrologer to endorse it. And put up two ( Read more... )

Last evening, my neighbour, who is also the president of the local resident's welfare association, briefly dropped in to hand over my mother's voting chit. And dropped in a line asking us to vote for a particular party. "This guy has done excellent work in his previous term as MLA", he said, "and we'll all benefit if he is gets elected".

So what I ( Read more... )

There are two notable things regarding the ongoing elections in Karnataka. The first is the presence of a large number of real estate developers in the elections. The second is the virtual non-existence of corruption, rather the removal of it, in party manifestos. These two points, I believe, are not independent. Under the current system, political ( Read more... )

i think i'm going to have some free time in the first week of may. i used to have this plan of randomly touring karnataka. and despite the heat, i think this would be a good time to do it. also, given that it's election time, I think i can get lots more insights from my proposed tour ( Read more... )

Both have joined the BJP.

"dialogue king" Saikumar will be contesting from Bagepalli, which lies close to the Gultland border.

"sob queen" Shruti isn't contesting. However, her husband S Mahender will be the BJP candidate from the Kollegal (SC) constituency.    

Looking around the whitefield-krishnarajapuram area, one gets the feeling that the BJP is strong in these parts. The area is dotted with advertisements by the party, and the local party office is also quite prominent. No other party has any sort of visible presence here, and considering that this area is semi-urban and has a large number of Reddys ( Read more... )

"Bangalore South is not as Brahmin-dominated as you think", Rajeev Gowda had told me about two years back. "There are an equal number of Vokkaligas here. So I do have good chances of winning". Unfortunately for Prof. Gowda, Basavanagudi, where he lives, is currently represented by former mayor K Chandrashekar, another Congress Vokkaliga.

As far as ( Read more... )