South

Gains by the BJP in the Karnataka assembly election next month will fall short of a majority, an opinion poll showed, potentially forcing it to seek an alliance to end the rule of the Congress party in its last big state.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah lashed out at BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa on Tuesday for calling Congress a party of dynastic politics as he questioned the credentials of the BJP to make the attack.

On the last day of filing nominations for the Karnataka assembly elections that are due next month, there were surprises right up to the last minute, especially in Badami constituency that witnessed shows of strength by political heavyweights from the Congress and the BJP.

A 34-year-old woman was arrested in connection with the death of four members of her family, including two children, in a village in the district, police said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to address about 20 rallies in Karnataka to boost the BJP's campaign in a state where his party is locked in a keen fight with the Congress.

The Congress stands a very good chance of winning the Karnataka Assembly polls, and the high-command will take a call on the next chief minister, senior party leader Mallikarjun Kharge said today, indicating incumbent Siddaramaiah may not be the automatic choice.

Superstar Kamal Haasan who launched his political party Makkal Needhi Maiyam earlier this year today displayed his acting skills off the silver screen. At a mock gram sabha organised at his party's office in Chennai, the 63-year-old played the role of a villager to drive home the importance of the village body that he said can empower people and help tackle corruption.

The BJP will deploy some 40 "star campaigners" including Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Karnataka ahead of the assembly election on May 12, the party has told the state's top election officer

In one of its sharpest attack on BJP ahead of next month's Karnataka's assembly election, the Congress today put out documents that it said, showed how the federal probe agency CBI had shut down cases in the state's biggest iron-ore mining scandal that had cost BJP's BS Yeddyurappa the chief minister's chair back in 2011. Three mining baron brothers, the Reddy brothers, were at the heart of these mining scandals.

The BJP move to pull out the son of BS Yeddyurappa from Varuna will "make no difference", Congress candidate Dr Yatheendra Siddaramiah told NDTV a day after the BJP unit witnessed a virtual rebellion following the shock announcement. The election at Varuna was expected to be a face-off between the sons of the Congress Chief Minister and the BJP's prospective chief minister - till Mr Yeddyrappa announced last evening that his son won't be contesting.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will face BJP parliamentarian B Sriramulu, a key aide of the Reddy brothers, in Karnataka's Badami on the May 12 election.

BS Yeddyurappa's son will not contest the May 12 Karnataka election, the BJP made it clear as announced a youth wing post for BY Vijayendra to appease the father-son combo. Yesterday, angry BJP workers shouted slogans against party chief Amit Shah and broke furniture at a hotel in protest as Yeddyurappa Junior was not named as the BJP candidate in Varuna.

There was no dog-whistling involved; instead, the call to action was unabashedly blunt.

The Coimbatore Police has arrested a 1998 serial blast convict Mohammed Rafiq after a recorded telephonic conversation went viral on social media in which he is allegedly heard saying he is planning to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the police said.

Two senior leaders of the ruling AIADMK today sought to make light of an article published in the party's mouthpiece suggesting that working with BJP would be like a "double-barrelled gun" in the political arena, with one of them saying a "columnist" cannot determine electoral pacts.