Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge suffers first electoral defeat in his career
Bengaluru, May 23: In a huge setback to the Congress, veteran party leader Mallikarjun Karge was defeated by BJP's Umesh Jadhav in Gulbarga by a margin of 95,452 votes Thursday.
Popularly known as "solillada Saradara", (a leader without defeat), this was the first electoral loss in Kharge's political life spanning several decades.
While Jadhav secured 6,20,192 votes, Kharge got 5,24,740 votes, according to the Election Commission.
Ahead of the polls, Jadhav had quit as Congress MLA and joined the BJP to contest the Lok Sabha election from Gulbarga.
Jadhav was among the four MLAs against whom Congress had moved the Assembly Speaker for disqualification under anti-defection law.
Following Jadhav's resignation as MLA, the congress had petitioned the Speaker not to accept his resignation as disqualification was pending against him.
However, the speaker after hearing both sides accepted his resignation as MLA.
This election was considered as tough one for Kharge, a nine-time MLA and two-term Lok Sabha member, as several senior leaders of Congresslike BaburaoChinchansur, Malka Reddy and Malikayya Guttedar, from the region quit the party and joined BJP.
These leaders along with Jadhav, who had quit theCongress upset over the dominance of Kharge and his son Priyank Kharge (Minister in the coalition government) in the region, found a common ground and aggressively campaigned against the father-son duo.
Kharge, who was leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha, had served as Union Cabinet Minister- Labour and Employment, also Railways and Social Justice and Empowerment in theManmohan Singh-led UPA government.
He had also held various portfolios in successive Congress governments that governed the state and was also president of Karnataka Congress and leader of opposition in the state assembly.
Kharge had defeated Revunaik Belamagi of the BJP by a margin of 74,733 votes in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
While Kharge secured a vote share of 51.35 per cent, Belamagi got 43.78 percent.
Gulbarga for long has been the bastion of the Congress and the party had lost its hold over the constituency only in 1996 and 1998 Lok Sabha polls when the JanataDal and BJP had won the seat respectively.
Gulbarga has eight assembly seats of which Congress holds four, the BJP three and JD(S) one.
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Explosive device kills 13, injures 38 on bus in southwestern Colombia as violence persists
Bogota (Colombia) (PTI): An explosive device killed 13 people travelling on a bus in southwestern Colombia on Saturday, an attack the country's army chief described as a “terrorist act" that also left at least 38 injured as violence linked to drug trafficking in the region escalates.
Octavio Guzman, the governor of the region of Cauca, said on X that the device was set off while the bus was travelling along the Panamerican Highway in the municipality of Cajibio. Five children were among the injured, Cauca Health Secretary Carolina Camargo told Noticias Caracol, a TV news program.
Gen. Hugo Lopez, commander of Colombia's Armed Forces, told a news conference that it was a “terrorist act" and blamed the network of a man known as “Ivan Mordisco” — one of Colombia's most wanted figures — and the Jaime Martínez faction. Both are dissidents of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that operate in the region.
Neither Ivan Mordisco nor the Jaime Martínez faction abide by the peace agreement signed with the state in 2016.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the attack on X.
“Those who carried out the attack and killed seven civilians — and wounded 17 others — in Cajibío — many of them Indigenous people — are terrorists, fascists, and drug traffickers,” he wrote.
The attack is the latest in a spate of explosions that have attempted to target public infrastructure. At least 26 incidents have taken place in the past two days in southwestern Colombia, which Lopez said have only affected civilians.
They included a shooting at a police station in the rural area of Jamundi, and an attack on a Civil Aviation radar facility in El Tambo, where authorities took down three explosives-laden drones earlier on Saturday. No one was hurt.
On Friday, two vehicles rigged with explosives were detonated near military units in Cali and Palmira, causing material damage.
The escalation of violence in that region — a territory contested by illegal armed groups linked to drug trafficking — prompted the mobilisation of high-ranking officials on Saturday. Led by Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez, the delegation that includes regional governors and local authorities, was meeting in Palmira when the deadly explosion occurred.
“These criminals seek to instil fear, but we will respond with firmness,” Sanchez said on X.
Meanwhile, Francisca Toro, governor of Valle del Cauca, has called upon the national government to provide “immediate support.” In a message on X, Toro called for a reinforcement of public security forces, enhanced intelligence operations and “decisive actions” against crime in the face of a “terrorist-level escalation.”
According to authorities, Cauca and Valle del Cauca serve as a critical hub for illicit activities of illegal armed groups vying for control over sea and river access routes leading to the port of Buenaventura — a key transit point used to traffic drugs to Central America and Europe.
The government has also offered a reward of more than 1 million dollars for information leading to the capture of “Marlon,” who is identified as the leader of the region's dissident group. On Friday, local authorities offered more than USD 14,000 for information leading to the identification and location of those behind the attacks in Cali and Palmira.
