A poster featuring Karnataka's Minister for Fisheries, Port, and Inland Transport, Mankal Vaidya, has stirred controversy as it circulates widely on social media. The poster supposedly conveys the minister's wishes to Republic Bharat on the launch of their Kannada News Channel.

Republic Network, led by Arnab Goswami, one of the news anchors who recently faced a boycott by the INDIA bloc alliance, owns and manages the Republic Network.

The viral poster suggests that it originally appeared on the minister's official Facebook page. However, Vartha Bharati, couldn't independently verify this claim because the minister's timeline lacked any such posts. Interestingly, several social media users assert that the post was later deleted from the minister's account.

The poster features Minister Mankal Vaidya's image alongside Arnab Goswami, accompanied by a quote congratulating Goswami on the launch of the new Kannada news channel.

The circulation of this viral poster has ignited debates and discussions on social media platforms.

When reached for comment, the minister's media team denied any involvement in posting such content and said they were investigating the origin of the poster.

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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.