9 Muslim candidates win in Karnataka Assembly polls, all from Congress
New Delhi, May 14: Nine Muslim candidates, all from the Congress, emerged victorious in the Karnataka Assembly polls.
The Congress on Saturday made a stunning comeback in Karnataka, winning 135 of the 224 Assembly seats. The BJP, which bagged 66 seats, lost the only southern state it was in power.
The consolidation of Muslim votes, which make up nearly 13 per cent of the state's electorate, seems to have worked in favour of the Congress. The party has promised to restore a four per cent quota for Muslims, which the erstwhile BJP government scrapped.
Notably, these were the first Assembly elections in the state since the controversy over hijab and the central government imposed a five-year ban on the Islamist organisation Popular Front of India (PFI).
The Congress handed over tickets to 15 Muslim candidates and nine of them emerged victorious. The JD(S) fielded 23 Muslim candidates, but none could secure a victory.
Asaduddin Owaisi's AIMIM contested two seats and secured only 0.02 per cent of the votes polled. The SDPI the political outfit of PFI met a similar fate as none of its 16 candidates could open their accounts.
For the Congress, Rahim Khan won in Bidar by a margin of 10,659 votes; UT Khader Fareed in Mangalore by 22,977 votes; Tanveer Sait in Narasimharaja (Mysuru) by 31,091 votes; Asif (Raju) Sait in Belagavi North by 4,551 votes; Rizwan Arshad in Shivajinagar by 23,198 votes; B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan in Chamrajpet by 53,983 votes; H A Iqbal Hussain in Ramanagaram by 10,846 votes; N A Haris in Shanti Nagar by 7,070 votes; and Kaneez Fatima in Gulbarga North by a margin 2,979 votes.
Fatima the incumbent MLA from the Gulbarga North constituency was the lone Muslim woman candidate fielded by the Congress.
Only two of these nine Muslim candidates Asif (Raju) Sait and Iqbal Hussain have been re-elected. The remaining seven will be going to the Assembly for the first time.
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ISRO successfully conducts second integrated air drop test for Gaganyaan mission
New Delhi (PTI): Space agency ISRO has successfully conducted the second integrated air drop test (IADT-02) for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission at the space station in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.
The system is essential to ensure a safe recovery of the crew module -- the capsule in which astronauts sit during a human flight -- during re-entry and landing.
Union minister Jitendra Singh congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for successfully conducting the test.
"Congratulations #ISRO for the successful accomplishment of Second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) for #Gaganyaan, India's first Human Space flight scheduled next year. The second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station Sriharikota," Singh said in a post on X.
The IADT-02 follows the successful completion of the first IADT, which took place on August 24, 2025, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
Air drop tests recreate the last leg of a spacecraft's return to Earth. An aircraft or helicopter drops the spacecraft from a height to test various systems under different scenarios.
These are the deployment of the parachute system in case the mission is aborted mid-flight, system performance when one parachute fails to open and the spacecraft's orientation and safety during splashdown etc.
In the IADT-02 test, a simulated crew module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about three kilometres and released over a designated drop zone in the sea, near the Sriharikota coast.
In a statement, the ISRO said, "Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the crew module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated crew module was successfully recovered in coordination with the Indian Navy."
