Mysuru: Ten Janata Dal Secular (JD-S) members, including seven former MLAs, on Sunday joined the ruling Congress in poll-bound Karnataka.

"Ten JD-S leaders joined Congress in the presence of the party President Rahul Gandhi," tweeted Congress' state unit president G. Parameshwara.

The leaders - B.Z. Zameer Ahmed Khan, M.C. Nanaiah, N. Chaluvarayaswamy, R. Akhanda Srinivasa Murthy, H.C. Balakrishna, Bheema Naik, Ramesh Bandisidde Gowda, Iqbal Ansari, Sarovar Srinivas and B. Ramakrishna - joined the party during party chief Rahul Gandhi's rally here, party leaders said.

Of the 10 leaders, the seven members of the assembly had quit JD-S and tendered their resignations to Assembly Speaker K.B. Koliwad on Saturday.

The seven - Khan, Murthy, Chaluvarayaswamy, Ansari, Balakrishna, Gowda and Naik - were earlier suspended by JD-S for allegedly defying the party's whip and cross-voting for Congress during the 2016 Rajya Sabha polls.

Khan is a three-time MLA from Chamrajpet assembly constituency, Murthy represents Pulakeshinagar assembly segment in Bengaluru and Ansari, the Gangavathi constituency in Koppal district.

Balakrishna, Bandisiddegowda and Naik are respectively the MLAs from Magadi constituency in Ramanagara district, Srirangapatna constituency in Mandya district and Hagaribommanahalli constituency in Ballari district.

Nanaiah, Srinivas and Ramakrishna are the former JD-S Members of the Legislative Council.

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Chennai, Nov 2: A 27-year-old native of Thiruvarur district, who had arrived from Sharjah, has tested negative for monkey pox, Health Minister Ma Subramanian said here on Saturday.

Test results from both the King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research here and the Pune-based National Institute of Virology have show negative for Mpox virus, the minister said.

Subramanian had earlier in the day told reporters that result was awaited for the sample that had been dispatched to the NIV while test result from King Institute ruled out monkey pox.

On October 31, upon his arrival at Tiruchirappalli airport from the UAE, during screening, the young man displayed fever symptoms and small skin lesions. Hence, he was taken to a government hospital.

Subramanian said the returnee had been frightened and hence left for his hometown of Valangaiman in Thiruvarur district. "This treatment is for his good and in order to prevent the spread of infection," the minister said.

Hence, he was brought back to the hospital by the authorities with police help and he has been receiving good treatment at the state-run facility. Further, Subramanian said that the test result from the government-run King Institute indicated Chickenpox and marked negative for presence of Mpox.

Screening at airports for passengers arriving from foreign countries is going on continuously in the state and international airports have dedicated isolated rooms.

Special wards are ready in government medical college hospitals, including those in Chennai and Tiruchirappalli, to provide treatment for Mpox, in case anyone tests positive for the infection, the minister added.