Kumaraswamy to take oath as Karnataka CM on Wednesday
Bengaluru, May 20: Janata Dal-Secular's (JD-S) legislative party leader H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday said he will take oath as Karnataka Chief Minister on May 23 here in the presence of several national leaders.
"I've deferred taking oath to Wednesday on the advise of the Congress as May 21 is (ex-Prime Minister) Rajiv Gandhi's death anniversary. On Thursday, the Speaker will be elected and the date of seeking trust vote will be decided after that," Kumaraswamy told reporters here.
The JD-S leader told the media on Saturday that he has been invited by Governor Vajubhai R. Vala to form the government as the leader of the JD-S legislative party with the support of the Congress.
The invitation came a few hours after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislature party leader B.S. Yeddyurappa on Saturday stepped down as the Chief Minister ahead of his trust vote as his party with 104 seats fell short of 7 seats for a simple majority (111) in the 224-member hung Assembly.
Though Kumaraswamy had said he would take oath on Monday, he put it off to May 23 on the Congress advise as May 21 is the death anniversary of Gandhi, who was killed in 1991 by Sri Lankan Tamil rebels at Sriperumbudur near Chennai.
Kumaraswamy will be flying to Delhi to meet Congress President Rahul Gandhi and his mother and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Monday.
"I will discuss with them (Rahul and Sonia) on the cabinet expansion. So far, I'm not sure about the Congress stand. We want to make sure the government is a stable one," Kumaraswamy said.
Apart from the Congress leaders, he has also invited Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to attend the swearing-in ceremony, the JD-S leader said.
The JD-S (36) and Congress (78) alliance has 117 members in the House. With the support of three others, Kumaraswamy has 6 more than the required 111 halfway mark, excluding the Speaker to prove a majority in the House.
This is the second time Kumaraswamy, the son of JD-S supremo and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, will be the Chief Minister of the southern state, 12 years after the JD-S formed a coalition government with the BJP on February 4, 2006 and remained in office for 20 months till October 9, 2007.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
