Sudha Yadav sworn in as Karnataka’s second woman Governor

Posted on by Vividh Bharathi

Bengaluru, Oct 16 (IANS) Senior BJP leader Dr. Sudha Yadav was sworn in as the 20th Governor of Karnataka at Lok Bhavan in Bengaluru on Friday. She is the second woman to hold the constitutional post in the state, after V.S. Ramadevi, who served as Governor from 1999 to 2002.

Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court Vibhu Bakhru administered the oath of office to Sudha Yadav in the presence of Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara and other dignitaries.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council Chalavadi Narayanaswamy and outgoing Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot were among those present at the ceremony.

Ahead of the oath-taking ceremony, Sudha Yadav paid floral tributes at the National Military Memorial in Bengaluru. Following the ceremony, Gehlot felicitated the new Governor, while Chief Minister Shivakumar presented her with a bouquet.

President Droupadi Murmu appointed Sudha Yadav as the Governor of Karnataka on October 12.

Gehlot had served as Karnataka Governor since July 21, 2021.

Sudha Yadav hails from Haryana and has held several key positions in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She served as a Member of Parliament representing Mahendragarh from 1999 to 2004 and later held the post of BJP national secretary. She also headed the party’s Other Backward Classes (OBC) Morcha.

She was a member of the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) from 2019 to 2022. In August 2022, she was inducted into the BJP’s Parliamentary Board, the party’s highest decision-making body.

Sudha Yadav holds a postgraduate degree in Chemistry and a PhD from Roorkee University.

She entered politics following the death of her husband, Sukhbir Singh Yadav, a Deputy Commandant in the Border Security Force (BSF), who was killed during the 1999 Kargil War.

Her appointment marks a significant milestone in Karnataka’s history of appointment of Governors, with the state getting its second woman Governor.

–IANS

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Marking a pioneering initiative, the Commission has begun conducting training in regional languages — a step aimed at greater inclusivity and comprehension.

As part of this initiative, a dedicated training programme for officials from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry is currently underway in Tamil language.

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Addressing the participants during the inaugural session, Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar underlined the critical role played by BLOs as the primary interface between the Election Commission and voters. He emphasised that their responsibilities directly impact the accuracy and integrity of electoral rolls — the bedrock of any democratic process.

Over the coming years, the ECI plans to train more than one lakh BLOs across the country. At IIIDEM, the current programme is designed to be interactive and hands-on, featuring sessions on the correct handling and processing of Forms 6, 7, and 8, used for voter registration and corrections.

It also includes practical modules on using IT tools to streamline electoral roll management.

The participating BLO Supervisors are being prepared to serve as Assembly Level Master Trainers (ALMTs), who will in turn train BLOs in their respective constituencies — creating a multiplier effect in skill dissemination.

An important component of the training is legal literacy: Participants are being oriented on the appellate provisions under the Representation of the People Act, 1950. They are learning about the process for filing first appeals with the District Magistrate or an officer of equivalent rank under Section 24(a), and second appeals with the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the State or Union Territory under Section 24(b).

Notably, the Commission highlighted that no appeals were filed from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry following the recent Special Summary Revision (SSR) exercise conducted between January 6 and 10, 2025 — a positive indicator of the robustness of the revision process.

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Counting of votes underway for high-stakes Ludhiana (West) seat for AAP

Chandigarh, June 23 (IANS) The counting of ballots for the high-stakes Ludhiana (West) Assembly seat for the state ruling AAP was underway on Monday amidst tight security arrangements.

The polling for the lone seat was held on June 19, which saw 51.33 per cent voting out of 1.74 lakh electorates. The seat fell vacant after the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.

The state ruling Aam Aadmi Party is eyeing to retain the seat, while the main Opposition Congress is aiming to win back the seat that it had represented six times.

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The main contest largely seems between AAP’s candidate Sanjeev Arora, the party’s Rajya Sabha member and local industrialist, Congress’ former Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who represented the seat twice from 2012.

Ashu was defeated by his friend-turned-foe Gogi, 58, by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Assembly poll.

The BJP has fielded Jiwan Gupta, the party’s state unit core committee member, while its former ally, Akali Dal, reposed faith in Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a former president of the Ludhiana Bar Association.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP polled the highest number of votes from the Ludhiana (West) segment. By fielding the Rajya Sabha MP, speculations in political circles are rife that AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, who’s active in the state politics after facing humiliating defeat not only of his party but his bastion in Delhi Assembly elections, is going to the Rajya Sabha in his place in case Sanjeev Arora wins the bypoll.

However, the party denies that Kejriwal is moving to the Rajya Sabha.

Interestingly, in October 2024, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out a raid at the residence of AAP candidate Arora as part of a money laundering probe linked to a land ‘fraud’ case.

The BJP, which is expanding its footprints in the state’s Hindu-dominated urban constituencies, is eyeing to give a tough contest to both the state ruling AAP and the Congress by fielding a strong and credible local face with grassroots connect.

In the run-up to the polling, the Bharatiya Janata Party carried out a scathing attack on the three-year rule of AAP’s governance in Punjab, accusing them of transforming the state into a “rehabilitation centre” for Kejriwal’s rejected Delhi loyalists.

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Twisha Sharma death case: 2nd post-mortem underway at AIIMS Bhopal amid tight security

Bhopal, May 24 (IANS) The process for the second post-mortem of Twisha Sharma’s body, the 33-year-old former Miss Pune contestant who died under mysterious circumstances, began on Sunday at AIIMS Bhopal.

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Twisha’s father, Navnidhi Sharma, approached the High Court after the initial rejection of their plea, seeking an impartial probe.

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