Lack of majority forced Yeddyurappa to quit: BJP
Bengaluru, May 19: The BJP on Saturday admitted that its Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned as his government did not have the numbers for simple majority to win the trust vote in a hung Assembly.
"As we did not have the numbers (112) required to win the trust vote, our party leaders in Bengaluru and Delhi decided that Yeddyurappa should resign," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesman Vamanachrya told IANS here.
BJP leaders and Union Ministers Prakash Javadekar, Dharmendra Pradhan and Ananth Kumar were regularly in touch with the party's leadership in Delhi throughout the Assembly proceedings, he said.
"By 3 p.m., we have communicated to our leaders that we lost the battle and a decision was taken that Yeddyurappa has to resign. His resignation speech was prepared," added Vamanacharya.
He also denied allegations of the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) that the BJP had indulged in horse-trading.
"These allegations are being levelled against us since the election results came on Tuesday. If we would have gone for horse-trading, getting seven legislators on board was not a huge task. But we did not try and we stuck to honest politics like we always do," Vamanacharya said.
Yeddyurappa, 75, who announced his resignation on the floor of the House before the trust vote, drove to Raj Bhavan and submitted his resignation to Governor Vajubhai R. Vala.
The BJP won 104 seats in the May 12 assembly election held in 222 of the state's 224 constituencies, falling eight short of a simple majority.
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Taj Mahal top earning ASI monument through ticket sales from FY19-20 to FY23-24: Govt
New Delhi, Apr 3 (PTI): The iconic Taj Mahal in Agra earned the "highest income" through the sale of tickets among the ASI-protected monuments from FY19-20 to FY23-24, according to data shared by the government.
Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat shared the data in a written response to a query in Rajya Sabha.
He was asked the amount that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has received from selling entry tickets to various monuments in the last five years, year-wise and monument-wise; and the monuments that have received the highest income through selling entry tickets in the last five years.
In his response, the minister shared the data in a tabular form for cycles of financial years ranging from FY19-20 to FY23-24.
According to the data, Taj Mahal earned the top slot for all five years.
The Mughal-era architectural wonder was commissioned by Emperor Shah Jehan in the 17th century and it is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.
In FY19-20, the Agra Fort in Agra and Qutub Minar in Delhi were in the second and third positions.
In FY20-21, the Group of Monuments Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu and Sun Temple, Konark were in the second and third positions. In FY23-24, Qutub Minar and Red Fort of Delhi were in the second and third positions.
