South

Minutes after BS Yeddyurappa stepped down as chief minister, in Delhi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi took the just-concluded battle for Karnataka right to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's door. An unusually combative Mr Gandhi, 47, said the BJP's failed effort to buy a majority in the assembly had been "directly authorised" by PM Modi and the idea that he was fighting corruption is a "blatant lie".

Two days after he took oath as Karnataka's chief minister with a promise to form a BJP government in the state, BS Yeddyurappa resigned from the post, moments before the much-awaited trust vote as directed by the Supreme Court on Friday

Just hours before BS Yeddyurappa quit as Karnataka Chief Minister in the assembly today, the Congress released two more audio tapes that it claimed proved that the ruling BJP was trying to bribe its lawmakers to raise numbers before thetrust vote.

Janata Dal Secular leader HD Kumaraswamy said he will take oath as the chief minister of Karnataka, hours after the BJP's BS Yeddyurappa resigned from the top post without facing a floor test. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) walked away from a Supreme Court-ordered floor test to prove it had the support of a majority of legislators to govern Karnataka, after an election a week ago threw up no clear winner.

The Supreme Court, which yesterday ordered newly sworn-in Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa to face the test of strength at 4 pm today, will shortly hear the Congress's plea to cancel the appointment of BJP's KG Bopaiah as the interim speaker for the floor test.

Two days after he took oath as the chief minister of Karnataka, BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa resigned today, just minutes before his minority government was to take a trust vote on the floor of the assembly. In an emotional speech, the BJP's tallest leader in Karnataka, said, "If only people would have given us 113 seats instead of 104, we would have made this state a paradise." The BJP is short of a majority and has been accused by the opposition Congress and Janata Dal Secular of trying to bribe and threaten their lawmakers.

24 hours after they were moved out of Bengaluru to Hyderabad over fears of poaching, the lawmakers of the Congress and the Janata Dal Secular or JDS are on their way back to Karnataka's capital for BS Yeddyurappa's trust vote in the assembly today.

Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was today elected as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party at a meeting of party MLAs held in Hyderabad.

Whether BJP lawmaker KG Bopaiah is qualified to be the temporary speaker when Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa takes a trust vote in the Karnataka assembly will be heard by the Supreme Court tomorrow morning. The three-judge bench, which had taken up the earlier petition against Mr Yeddyurappa's appointment, will start the hearing at 10.30 a.m, just half-an-hour before the assembly meets in Bengaluru. The trust vote is to happen later in the day, at 4 p.m.

Four members of a family were today found dead at their rented house near Ettumanoor in the district, police said. The deceased have been identified as 42-year-old Sinoj, his wife Nisha, 35 and two sons, aged 12 and seven, they said.

Former prime minister and JD(S) leader HD Deve Gowda today offered prayers at the Lord Venkateswara hill shrine in the town of Tirumala near Tirupati in the Chittoot district, around 560 kilometres from Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.

The BJP's BS Yeddyurappa faces a test of strength in Karnataka today, two days after he took oath under controversial circumstances. He was given 15 days by Governor Vajubhai Vala to prove his majority, but the Supreme Court, hearing a Congress petition, today drastically slashed that time to just one day.

In his letter to Governor Vajubhai Vala that got him the controversial invitation to take oath, BS Yeddyurappa had claimed that the BJP had the "requisite majority" in the Karnataka assembly but did not spell out how his party, which won 104 out of 222 seats would, reach the majority mark of 112. He also did not spell out how much time he would need to face the trust vote in the assembly.

Just a day before BJP's BS Yeddyurappa faces the Supreme Court-ordered floor test in the Karnataka assembly, the Congress on Friday released an audio tape that the party claims shows how the BJP was trying to lure its legislators to support Chief Minister Yeddyurappa in the Karnataka assembly.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi today said the Supreme Court order on floor test in Karnataka was a vindication of the party's stand that the governor acted "unconstitutionally".