Vijayapura (Karnataka), May 8: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday took a dig at the Congress, claiming that its leaders were now saying that if former party chief Sonia Gandhi canvasses in the state, it can at least save the security deposits of Congress candidates.

Modi said he had on Monday watched an interview of a Congress leader who said that the son (Congress President Rahul Gandhi) "will not be able to do anything".

"If you bring the mother (Sonia) to Karnataka and she does something, then maybe the deposits can be saved. This is what Congress leaders have started speaking," Modi said at a rally here.

His remarks came on a day Sonia Gandhi is scheduled to address a rally at Bijapur, her first election rally in nearly two years.

Modi also accused the state's Congress government of trying to gain votes by seeking to divide communities.

He claimed the Congress was spreading lies on the issue of women's security and said that a daughter is a daughter irrespective of the community she belongs to.

The Prime Minister also accused the Congress of not supporting the triple talaq bill in the Rajya Sabha.

Modi said the Bharatiya Janata Party was seeking votes in the name of development but the Congress was in such a position that their leaders did not have faith in their 'naamdar' (dynasty) leader.

Modi referred to Vijayapura as the birth place of Lord Basaveshwara, a 12th century social reformer and philosopher who founded the Lingayat religious tradition, and targeted Karnataka's Siddaramaiah government over its move to recommend minority community status for the Lingayats in the southern state.

He said Lord Basaveshwara's message was against divisions of caste and community but the state government had got into a habit of working against his message and of forgetting his words.

"Bhagwan Basaveshwara conveyed that everyone should be taken along. This Congress government is dividing communities, castes, voters... divide and rule, pit one against the other. They want to save their chair. But Congress leaders do not know this is the land of Bhagwan Basaveshwara. It is not going to be divided into communities and will not accept division among brothers. They will remove the Congress but will not allow poison of casteism," Modi said.

 

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Sydney, Apr 13 (PTI): Four years after Shane Warne's death left the cricketing world in shock, his son Jackson has asserted that the spin legend's demise was probably caused by the "three or four" COVID vaccines that he was "forced to take for work."

Speaking on '2 Worlds Collide podcast', Jackson, however, also acknowledged that his father had underlying health issues. Warne was 52 when he died in Thailand in 2022 after suffering a heart attack.

"I definitely think that it (COVID vaccine) was involved. I don't even think saying that is controversial anymore. Even if dad had underlying health issues, I think this brought it out right to the surface and that's one thing that I've always struggled with," Jackson said.

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"My first impression, as soon as I hung up the phone (after receiving the news of Warne's death), I instantly blamed the government. I instantly blamed COVID and the vaccine."

Jackson said he barely managed to stop himself from vocalising his exact thoughts at the memorial service.

"It was probably smart I didn't, I would be in a very different position if I did. But that was how I felt," Jackson said.

"Yes, a lot of people were dying of heart attacks before. But dad was okay, I think he might have got three or four (vaccine doses), he didn't want to get them, he was forced to get them for work. He was forced to get them like everybody else," he asserted.

"...I try not to think about it too much because all that does is fester into anger. That anger is not good for anybody," he added.

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Giving an insight into the lifestyle of his father, who was known to be indulgent, Jackson said it was relatively healthy despite the smoking and drinking.

"Dad, at the time, was healthy, he was happy. He looked the best he had in a while. Yes, he smoked and drank, but so many more people in their 80s and 90s still smoke and drink a lot more than dad," he said.

Warne had contracted COVID a few months before his death during his 2021 coaching stint with The Hundred event in England.

However, he was not known to have any major ailment at the time of his stunning demise.