Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh government has decided to provide security to Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut in the state and is also considering to extend it during her upcoming visit to Mumbai, Chief Minister Jairam Thakur said here on Sunday.

The chief minister disclosed it while talking to reporters after a BJP legislature party meet here.

This is our duty to provide her security as she is a daughter of Himachal Pradesh and a celebrity, he added.

Responding to reporters' queries, Thakur said that both Kangana Ranaut's sister and her father have approached the government seeking security for the actor.

Her sister telephoned me yesterday and talked to me. Her father too had written to the state police seeking the security. So I have asked DGP to give her security in the state, said Thakur.

The actor has also a programme to visit Mumbai on September 9 for which the government is considering to provide her security during the visit also, he added.

The chief minister, however, refused to say anything on Kangana Ranaut's recent remarks on actor Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide case, stating that the matter is being investigated.

He also avoided answering questions on the alleged threats given by Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut to the actor.

Earlier on Sunday, Raut demanded that the actor Ranaut apologise for her comments against Mumbai and Maharashtra.

Ranaut in a tweet recently had compared Mumbai to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

"Why is Mumbai feeling like Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir?" Ranaut had asked recently in a tweet, tagging with it a September 1 news report where Raut purportedly had said she should not come back to Mumbai if she was afraid of the city police.

 

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Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.

In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.

Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.

He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.

Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.

He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.

Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.

He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.