Mumbai: Days after Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan announced several initiatives to help the central and state government in their fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the superstar has now opened his office for treating COVID-19 patients.

The local municipal body, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), took to social media on Saturday to thank Shah Rukh and Gauri for the help.

We thank @iamsrk & @gaurikhan for offering their 4-storey personal office space to help expand our Quarantine capacity equipped with essentials for quarantined children, women & elderly. Indeed a thoughtful & timely gesture, BMC's official Twitter handle post read.

Sharing the civic body's tweet, Shah Rukh and Gauri said they are glad to get the opportunity of contributing in BMC's efforts towards taking care of the people of Mumbai.

"When we say mybmc', then it's with a sense of ownership and pride in all the efforts your teams are putting up to fight COVID-19. We both are thankful that we could be a part of your attempts to help and care for Mumbaikars," the couple wrote on their respective Twitter handles.

The 54-year-old superstar on Thursday announced various initiatives to help the country during the crisis.

The actor has taken the help of his companies -- Kolkata Knight Riders, Red Chillies Entertainment, Meer Foundation and Red Chillies VFX -- to provide support to the central and state governments.

SRK along with Gauri and business partners -- Juhi Chawla and Jay Mehta -- will be contributing to the PM-CARES Fund through IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and will also make a donation to the Maharashtra CM's Relief Fund through his film banner Red Chillies Entertainment.

Apart from this, the actor's NGO Meer Foundation will work with the Maharashtra and West Bengal governments for the supply of 50,000 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the healthcare professionals and has also tied up with Ek Saath - The Earth to provide daily food requirements to over 5500 families for at least a month in Mumbai.

The NGO, in association with Roti Foundation, will provide 3 lakh meal kits to 10,000 to underprivileged people and daily wage labourers for at least a month in Mumbai and will support 100 acid attack victims in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttarakhand.

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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.