Congress, BJP lock horns in Karnataka's triangular poll contest
Bengaluru, May 11:The ruling Congress and the opposition BJP have locked horns to outsmart each other in the Karnataka assembly election on Saturday, with the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) making the contest triangular.
As the only assembly poll being held in the peak summer, with temperatures soaring, the battle-royal at the hustings has the nation glued to the southern state where the stakes are high for both the national parties whose prospects the JD-S can make or mar as a kingmaker or spoiler in a fractured verdict.
"If the Congress is desperate to retain power defying anti-incumbency, the BJP is impatient to return to power in south India after losing badly 5 years ago, while the JD-S wages a lone battle to play a key role in the new government formation," a poll analyst told on Friday ahead of D-day.
Single-phase polling will be held across the state in 223 assembly segments, including 36 reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 15 for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) candidates. The election in south Bengaluru's Jayanagar constituency was countermanded following the death of BJP's candidate B.N. Vijayakumar on May 4.One member is nominated in the 225-member assembly.
A total of 4.97-crore electorate includes 2.52-crore men and 2.45-crore women. They will cast their ballots in 56,696 polling booths across the state amidst tight security, with 45,000 personnel from 585 the central and state forces deployed.
"In all, 2,654 candidates are in the fray, including 219 women; 222 are from the Congress, 222 from BJP, 201 from JD-S, 1,155 Independents and about 800 from other national, regional and fringe parties,"said state Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar after scrutiny and withdrawals on April 27.
With the largest number (28) of assembly seats in a district, Bengaluru will witness a battle of sorts as 449 contestants, including 37 women, are in the race.
Though the Congress returned to power in 2013 after losing the mandate in the 2004 and 2008 elections, it is betting on the 'performance" of its government, under Siddaramaiah, the only Chief Minister to have completed a five-year term 40 years after the party's legendary Devaraj Urs in 1978.
"When the votes are counted on May 15, we will know if the Siddaramaiah-led Congress is lucky to beat anti-incumbency and return power as no outgoing party could do over the last four decades," the analyst said.
As the second among the six southern states to be in power besides Puducherry, the Congress has been sweating out to hold on to Karnataka, as its outcome will decide not only Siddaramaiah's fate, but also the fortunes of his party's new president, Rahul Gandhi, who took over the mantle from his mother Sonia Gandhi in mid-December 2017.
"More than Gandhi, the party's state unit leaders are anxious to win the election at any cost so that they could credit it to him (Rahul) for leading the party to victory and revive its fortunes for the 2019 general elections," said Pradeep Puranik, a poll pandit in this tech hub.
According to Congress state unit vice-president B.K. Chandrashekar, the ruling party would get 115 seats, which are more than the halfway mark (113) and will retain power.
"Our welfare schemes like Indira canteens, 7 kg free rice per person for every household, free milk to school students and free education to girls up to post-graduation will work in our favour, with large number of women wanting to vote. We are confident of getting majority,"he said.
In contrast, the BJP has pulled all stops to free Karnataka also from the Congress yoke and consolidate its position for its expansion south of the Vindhyas.
The BJP declared its popular Lingayat leader, B.S. Yeddyurappa, as its chief ministerial nominee even before the elections were announced on March 27 although he was responsible for its defeat in the 2013 poll after he left it and formed the Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP), which split its votes.
The 75-year-old veteran politician, however, returned to BJP in early 2014, was elected to the Lok Sabha from his home district Shivamogga in the Malnad region and was made its state unit president for leading it in the crucial assembly polls.
Yeddyurappa was also the party's first Chief Minister in south India for three years from May 2008 to July 2011, when he was forced to resign following his indictment by the state's anti-graft watchdog (Lokayukta) in the multi-crore mining scam that rocked Karnataka for over a decade (2001-11).
"We are hopeful of getting majority due to palpable anti-incumbency against the Congress. We are confident of a decisive mandate to form the government on our own strength and without the support of other parties, as coalitions have failed in the past,"said BJP spokesperson Malavika Avinash.
The BJP and Yeddyurappa were beneficiaries of a 'sympathy wave' in the 2008 assembly election after coalition partner JD-S withdrew support to them in November 2007, resulting in President's rule for six months.
The BJP is also betting on the 'popularity' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the development model of its NDA government at the Centre over the past four years to again upstage the Congress and JD-S this time.
Modi campaigned extensively across the state with 21 rallies over five days from May 1-9 and drew huge crowds with his extempore speeches in Hindi that were translated into Kannada for the benefit of the local people.
The JD-S, on the other hand, has been working overtime to win the poll battle on the plank of being a regional party that alone takes care of the people in the face of national parties letting down the state on all fronts.
"We will be single largest party with more number of seats, followed by the BJP and the Congress. With the help of Independents, we will form the next government, as the people want a local party like ours to be in power this time, as the national parties have deceived them,"said JD-S spokesman Ramesh Babu.
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Hundreds of different dinosaur footprints discovered in UK's Oxfordshire
London (PTI): Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham have uncovered a huge expanse of quarry floor filled with hundreds of different dinosaur footprints.
In a stunning find, the teams uncovered multiple enormous trackways dating back to the Middle Jurassic Period (around 166 million years ago).
The trackways form part of a huge ‘dinosaur highway’ and include footprints from the nine-metre ferocious predator Megalosaurus, and herbivorous dinosaurs up to twice that size.
The excavation will be broadcast on BBC Two’s Digging for Britain on January 8 and featured in a new public exhibition Breaking Ground at Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH).
These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited.
The dig, carried out at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire, uncovered five extensive trackways with evidence of more in the surrounding area.
The longest continuous trackway measured more than 150 metres in length.
Four of the trackways were made by gigantic, long-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs called sauropods, most likely to be Cetiosaurus, an up to 18-metre-long cousin of the well-known Diplodocus.
The fifth trackway was made by the carnivorous theropod dinosaur, Megalosaurus which had distinctive, large, three-toed feet with claws.
One area of the site shows the carnivore and herbivore tracks crossing over, raising questions about whether and how the two were interacting.
Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur worldwide to be scientifically named and described in 1824, and kick-started the last 200 years of dinosaur science.
Dr Emma Nicholls, Vertebrate Palaeontologist at OUMNH, explained: “Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found.”
The footprints were buried under mud but came to light when quarry worker Gary Johnson felt ‘unusual bumps’ as he was stripping the clay back with his vehicle, in order to expose the quarry floor.
At this point, the experts were called in. Working closely with Dewars Farm and Duns Tew Quarry Manager Mark Stanway, and his staff, the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham co-led a team of more than 100 people on a week-long excavation in June 2024.
Together, they painstakingly uncovered around 200 footprints and built detailed 3D models of the site using aerial drone photography – documenting the footprints in unprecedented detail for future research.
Professor Kirsty Edgar, Professor of Micropalaeontology at the University of Birmingham, said: “These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited.”
Mark Stanway and his team at Smiths Bletchington provided an enormous amount of support from the initial discovery through to the full excavation. They were invaluable in providing both their extensive expertise in the local geology, and operating specialist equipment such as excavators and rock saws.
The new trackways connect to discoveries made in the area in 1997, where previous limestone quarrying revealed more than 40 sets of footprints, with some trackways reaching up to 180 m in length.
At the time, the site provided major new information on the types of dinosaurs present in the UK during the Middle Jurassic Period. The site was recognised as one of the most scientifically important dinosaur track sites in the world and subsequently designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
However, the original site is largely no longer accessible and, since the findings predated the use of digital cameras and drones, there is limited photographic evidence.
The new trackways add to the significance of the area, and even though the discoveries are separated by just thirty years, modern techniques and technology mean the prints can be recorded much more comprehensively than ever before.
Professor Richard Butler, Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, said: “There is much more that we can learn from this site, which is an important part of our national Earth heritage. Our 3D models will allow researchers to continue to study and make accessible this fascinating piece of our past for generations to come.”
During the new excavation, more than 20,000 images were created of the prints. These will provide a wealth of material for further study and education and could yield valuable insights into how these dinosaurs walked, including speeds, how large they were, and if and how they interacted.
Dr Duncan Murdock, Earth Scientist at OUMNH, said: “The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out. Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through.”
The BBC’s Digging for Britain team filmed the work as part of a new series due to be broadcast next week. Presented by Professor Alice Roberts, who is also the University of Birmingham’s Professor of Public Engagement in Science, the programme will be available on iPlayer from 7th January, and broadcast on BBC Two on 8th January 2025.
The dig will also feature in the exhibition Breaking Ground at OUMNH, which tells the story of major developments in our understanding of the history of life and Earth.
Visitors will be able to view the Megalosaurus fossils used in the first description of a dinosaur, see photographs and video footage from the dig site, and learn about the latest techniques used by palaeontologists to study dinosaurs.
The excavation was funded by the Geologists’ Association, School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and the University of Birmingham Alumni Fund.
