India Today’s Karnataka Roundtable 2023 brings together political heavyweights, industrialists and celebrities before the crucial state assembly polls on 10th May.
Organised by the India Today Group, the Karnataka Roundtable will be held on April 22 in Bengaluru. The roundtable will cover a wide range of topics critical to the state elections, from the resurgence of Congress to reservation politics, polarisation to corruption.
Among the speakers for the Karnataka Roundtable are Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Congress National President Mallikarjun Kharge, Chief Minister of Karnataka Basavaraj Bommai, Former Chief Minister of Karnataka and Leader of Opposition, Siddaramaiah, Congress president D K Shivakumar, Lingayat seer Basavarajendra Mrityunjaya Swami, among others.
The Roundtable will feature a host of sessions throughout the day, including ‘Karnataka Today, India Tomorrow,’ ‘The Battle for Karnataka,’ ‘Bengaluru Dreams or Dust,’ ‘Anyone for a slice of reservation,’ ‘BJP’s war for the south,’ ‘Karnataka’s war on corruption,’ ‘Namma Modi BJP’s gamechanger,’ and more.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will kick-off the event with his take on ‘Karnataka Today, India Tomorrow’, while the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Basavaraj Bommai, will speak on ‘The Battle for Karnataka.’ Mallikarjun Kharge, the President of the Indian National Congress, will focus on ‘Victory at ‘Hand’ and D K Shivakumar, the president of Karnataka Congress, will speak on his role as ‘Karnataka’s Chanakya.’
Additionally, former Karnataka CM’s Siddaramaiah and H D Kumaraswamy will participate in discussions titled ‘Roar of a Challenger’ and ‘Kingmaker or Crown,’. Other noteworthy speakers include Pralhad Joshi, the Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, who will discuss ‘Namma Modi BJP’s gamechanger,’ and Tejasvi Surya, MP Lok Sabha, BJP, and Dinesh Gundu Rao, Congress MLA, who will debate on ‘Delivery Dangal: What Karnataka Wants.’ Congress’ in-charge for Karnataka, Randeep Surjewala, and Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, will speak on ‘Who does Karnataka trust more.’
A panel discussion titled ‘Anyone for a slice of reservation’ will feature Lingayat seer Basavarajendra Mrityunjaya Swami, Karnataka Backward Class Commission chairman, K Jayaprakash Hegde, Chairman, BJP MLA Arvind Bellad, and Congress MLA NA Harris. Capt Gopinath, Founder, Air Deccan, will speak on ‘Bengaluru Dreams or Dust?’.
Minister C. N. Ashwath Narayan, Mohammed Haris Nalapad, President of the Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress Committee, Sowmya Reddy, MLA, Congress and Tejaswini Gowda, MLC, BJP will be part of a roundtable discussion titled ‘Youth Nataka: Hungry and Restless.’
The Kannada film industry basking in the glory of recent smash-hits like KGF-2 will celebrate its achievements in a discussion on ‘Sandalwood Soaring: Kannada Cinema’s fightback’ featuring actor and former Member of Parliament Ramya. The debate will move on to ‘BJP’s War for the South’ with K Annamalai, President of Tamil Nadu BJP and a talk on ‘Karnataka’s War on Corruption’ by Lok Ayukta, Justice B S Patil.