Karnataka: CM Yediyurappa announces state-wide lockdown till March 31
Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Monday night announced a lockdown from March 24 till month end in the entire state as seven new COVID-19 cases were reported, taking the tally in the state to 33.
The government earlier announced stricter measures in nine districts, including Bengaluru, where lockdown was declared on Sunday till March 31 to contain the spread of virus.
In a late night tweet, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said "after assessing the situation of covid-19, we have decided to lockdown not just 9 districts but the whole state of Karnataka starting tomorrow till March 31st.
I request all citizens to co-operate and please stay indoors."
In another tweet in Kannada, he said, the total lockdown was extended to the entire state "to control covid-19 infection which is spreading at dangerous level."
The government on Sunday announced shutdown of all commercial activities barring essential services in Bengaluru city, Bengaluru Rural, Mangaluru, Mysuru, Kalaburagi, Dharwad, Chikkaballapura, Kodagu and Belagavi till month end, while closing state borders and postponing board exams.
Orders were issued on Monday prohibiting gathering of more than five people in public places in these districts, stopping public and private transport services, and closing of government offices there.
"All gatherings of more than 5 persons shall be prohibited in public places except for purposes of containment of COVID-19 and statutory and regulatory functions," the state government said in an order signed by Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar.
It said all shops, commercial establishments, offices, workshops, godowns dealing shall close their operations subject to exceptions, while all industries and factories except those dealing with essential goods and services, food, medical equipment, drugs, fuel, agricultural inputs etc, shall remain closed.
"They (industries) are advised not to remove any worker on this account and advised to sanction paid leave on these days (till March 31) to the remaining workers," it added.
The government said all foreign returnees shall remain in strict home quarantine, and violation of home quarantine will entail penal action and shift to government quarantine.
The ongoing budget session of the Karnataka legislative assembly will be cut short, as Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri announced that it will be adjourned sine die on Tuesday, amid growing demand for it to be curtailed in the wake of COVID-19 outbreak.
"ill date 33 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state which includes one death," the state health department said in a bulletin.
It said 31 positive patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable. The seven new positive cases confirmed on Monday include two from neighbouring Kerala, and five from Bengaluru.
The government in its order has said all passenger transport services including inter-state, inter-district and within the district operations of Road Transport Corporations and private operations shall be stopped in the nine districts.
"Plying of private vehicles shall be permitted only for procuring essential commodities and exceptions permitted," it said, adding that all Ola, Uber, taxis, autorickshaws and other hired services shall not be permitted for passenger transport except for procuring essential commodities and medical emergencies.
All government offices dealing with non-essential services as notified by government shall remain closed, the order said, as it also called for stopping of all prayer and festival gatherings in the nine districts.
Warning against violating the regulations, the order said those in violation will have to face the law under Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act, sections of IPC, among others.
The Health Department said a mammoth exercise of identifying overseas passenger who had landed in Kempegowda International Airport at Bengaluru before March 17, was taken by city civic body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and have applied home quarantine stamps on 5,000 people on Sunday.
Following the shutdown, the government said food will be provided free of cost through state run 'Indira Canteen' for the poor who depend on their daily wages for livelihood.
ಅಪಾಯಕಾರಿ ಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಹರಡುತ್ತಿರುವ #ಕೋವಿಡ್_19 ಸೋಂಕನ್ನು ನಿಯಂತ್ರಿಸುವ ದೃಷ್ಟಿಯಿಂದ 9 ಜಿಲ್ಲೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಅನ್ವಯಿಸಿ 24 /03 /2020 ರಿಂದ 31 /03/2020 ರವರೆಗೆ ಹೊರಡಿಸಿದ್ದ ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣ ಲಾಕ್ ಡೌನ್ ಆದೇಶವನ್ನು
— CM of Karnataka (@CMofKarnataka) March 23, 2020
ರಾಜ್ಯಾದ್ಯಂತ ವಿಸ್ತರಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ .
ಸರ್ಕಾರದ ಈ ನಿರ್ಧಾರವನ್ನು ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ಕಟ್ಟುನಿಟ್ಟಾಗಿ ಪಾಲಿಸಲು ಕೋರಲಾಗಿದೆ.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Huge turnout amidst SIR shadow caps ballistic battle for Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): The West Bengal assembly polls ended on Wednesday with what the election watchdog said was the state's highest-ever voter turnout of 92.84 per cent, leading to mouth-watering anticipation ahead of the announcement of results on Monday as both contenders sounded sanguine about their victory prospects.
Wednesday's second phase saw a 92.48 per cent turnout. The concluding phase covering 142 constituencies in south Bengal appears poised to match the first phase's record voter participation of 93.19 per cent by the time final numbers are collated.
The figures put the combined poll percentage over the two-phases at 92.84 per cent. The first phase of polling was held on April 23.
"This is the highest-ever recorded poll participation since Independence in West Bengal," it said.
The capital Kolkata recorded a turnout of 88.59 per cent, with Purba Bardhaman district topping the charts at 93.78 per cent.
The scale of participation sent out an overarching political message — practically every single eligible voter in the state felt personally invested in the electoral process and its outcome. They turned out in numbers large enough to make every narrative contested and every claim of momentum politically loaded. If the first phase tested whether the BJP could retain its north Bengal citadel, the second and final round was always the real battle for the saffron party on whether it could breach the ruling TMC’s southern fortress of Kolkata, Howrah, Hooghly, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Bardhaman.
At the centre of the larger political fight stood Bhabanipur, no longer merely a south Kolkata constituency but Banerjee’s political refuge, her emotional home turf and the BJP’s chosen psychological battlefield.
Banerjee, 71, seeking a fourth consecutive term after 15 years in power, faced Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari in a prestige battle widely seen as a symbolic rematch of Nandigram, where Adhikari had defeated her in 2021 after crossing over from the TMC to the BJP.
Five years later, the duel shifted to Banerjee’s own bastion. For the TMC, retaining Bhabanipur is about protecting the chief minister’s authority in her own backyard. For the BJP, breaching it would puncture the aura of invincibility around Bengal’s most powerful political figure.
The constituency witnessed nearly 87 per cent polling, sharply up from around 61 per cent in the 2021 assembly polls and 57 per cent in the bypoll that brought Banerjee back to the House.
Banerjee – who usually votes later in the day and prefers staying indoors on the day of polls – broke convention and hit the ground before 8 am, moving through Chetla, Padmapukur and Chakraberia areas following complaints of alleged intimidation of local TMC leaders.
As she sat outside a booth amid heavy deployment of central forces, Adhikari arrived there and declared, "I will not allow any hooliganism." He opposed Banerjee moving around with "50-60 people" with her.
Banerjee accused the BJP of trying to "rig" the election by using central forces, election observers and officials.
"The BJP wants to rig this election. Polls in Bengal are usually peaceful. Is there a goonda raj here?" she said, alleging intimidation of TMC polling agents and late-night visits by CRPF personnel to party workers’ homes.
"The atrocities by the central forces are unprecedented. What is happening is not at all free and fair polls. But despite all this, we have full faith that we will win," she said after casting her vote.
Adhikari dismissed the charges as "frustration", claiming Banerjee had realised that "not a single vote was coming her way".
Tension flared again in Kalighat when Adhikari visited another booth, and TMC workers raised slogans against him. Police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse the crowd as BJP supporters answered with counter-slogans. Reports of sporadic tension were also received from some other areas amid sights of long queues at polling stations, booth-level flare-ups, and political bickering.
In Kolkata's Entally, BJP candidate Priyanka Tibrewal alleged that the TMC's polling agents tried to assault her after she objected to overcrowding inside a booth and a lack of voter privacy.
In Panihati, BJP candidate and the R G Kar victim's mother, Ratna Debnath, faced protests, while her party colleague in Basanti, Bikash Sardar, alleged that "200 to 250 TMC goons" attacked his vehicle and assaulted his driver.
The TMC, meanwhile, accused the central forces of exercising brute force on the general voters at Falta's Belsingha village, especially women, who were beaten up during a move to disperse a crowd from near a polling station.The party also alleged CAPF high-handedness on women and a four-year-old child at Sathachhia in Howrah and on villagers at Ausgram in Purba Bardhaman district.
"In the name of ensuring security, central force jawans are not sparing even women who were brutally lathi-charged. TMC protests this highhandedness of the male jawans who exercised brute force on unarmed villagers. We draw the EC's attention to such illegal actions of the CAPF and ask the poll body to issue cease-and-desist orders against such use of force. We believe, people of Bengal will respond to this on EVMs," Anirban Banerjee, party spokesperson, said.
The BJP alleged that in several polling stations in Falta, the option to vote for the party was blocked using a tape over EVM poll buttons, and demanded repolls in the affected booths.
The state’s Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal said repolling was likely to be announced in booths where EVMs were found tampered with. However, the order will only be issued after authorities receive reports from the district election officer or election observers regarding allegations of EVM tampering, such as using tapes or a blot of ink, he said.
