Amit Shah holding road show in Bangalore Rural as BJP-JD(S) workers are not united there: DKShi
Bengaluru, Mar 31: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Sunday said Union Home Minister Amit Shah is holding a roadshow at Channapatna in the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha segment, as workers of BJP and JD(S), who are fighting the polls in alliance, are not united there.
Shivakumar's brother and sitting MP D K Suresh is the Congress candidate in Bangalore Rural, while the BJP has fielded noted cardiologist Dr C N Manjunath, who is the son-in-law of JD(S) patriarch and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, on its ticket.
Shah will kick off his campaign in Karnataka on April 2. He is scheduled to hold a roadshow at Channapatna in the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha segment.
"Why they have selected Channapatna is because BJP and JD(S) are not united there, their workers are not united there. BJP and JD(S) workers who have fought each other day in and out, and even during local body polls, are not working together. So, Amit Shah is starting his campaign from there," Shivakumar said.
Addressing reporters here, he said JD(S) workers are also in a state of confusion in the Bangalore Rural segment, and people there know well about D K Suresh and Shivakumar.
ALSO READ: Amit Shah to launch poll campaign in Karnataka from April 2
"They (BJP-JDS) want to show their strength and that they are united by bringing Amit Shah there. Why didn't they hold both parties' joint workers' meetings till now? Just because the leaders have come together will the workers come together?" he asked, as he expressed confidence about his brother's win from the segment once again.
Suresh was the only Congress candidate who had won the Lok Sabha polls in 2019 when the party was in alliance with JD(S). While the regional party had won one seat, the BJP almost swept the polls then by winning 25 seats. The saffron party had also ensured that an independent candidate supported by it won.
Noting that he felt strange looking at the political developments in Ramanagara and Mandya districts, Shivakumar pointed out that BJP and JD(S) leaders, who had attacked each other in the past, have now come together.
"Kumaraswamy is now going to the doors of everyone (BJP leaders), so much change in him. Those who dislodged his government (Congress-JD(S) coalition government) or who laid foundation for its collapse -- (BJP leaders) Yediyurappa, Ashoka, Ashwath Narayan -- he (Kumaraswamy) is now embracing them, people will have to decide," he added.
Responding to a question on Kumaraswamy reportedly accusing him of backstabbing and "politically poisoning" the JD(S), Shivakumar asked the JD(S) state President to say it before the people.
"Congress party had made him (Kumaraswamy) who had only 38 MLAs as the Chief Minister of Karnataka (in 2018), is that poison? Amid rains and in the scorching heat I fought for the stability of his government, is that poison? My conscience, the Shakti that I believe in, and the workers of JD(S) are aware as to what I did. I don't mind if he (Kumaraswamy) doesn't remember it," he said.
The state Congress chief also condemned veteran party leader and MLA Shamanur Shivashankarappa's alleged sexist remark on the BJP's candidate from the Davnagere constituency Gayathri Siddeshwara, saying she is only "fit to cook".
"Congress and I believe in the fact that a woman is the eye of a family. He (Shivashankarappa) is aged and might have spoken something with some calculation, but we are committed to the cause of women. We have given tickets to six women candidates including Shivashankarappa's daughter-in-law, for the first time in the history of Karnataka Congress for Lok Sabha polls. We have introduced programmes keeping women in mind," he added.
To another question, Shivakumar claimed that surveys of several channels have said that NDA will not emerge victorious in Karnataka in the Lok Sabha polls.
"The candidate, programmes we have given and the unity that we have shown, you cannot match in the country," he added.
Asked about former Minister and BJP leader in Channapatna C P Yogeshwara's daughter Nisha Yogeshwara joining the Congress, Shivakumar said, she had come to meet him, and he has all sympathies for her, "but, I don't want the bad name of separating father and daughter for the sake of politics...I will speak to party leaders and workers, if she is insistent on working for Congress."
He also said that Yogeshwara seems to be "dreaming" about his future prospects in the Channapatna constituency, because of the BJP-JD(S) alliance, "but, he is not aware as to what will happen to him and his supporters there, as he lacks experience."
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.
Israel says rabbi who went missing in UAE was killed
Tel Aviv, Nov 24: Israel said Sunday that the body of an Israeli-Moldovan rabbi who went missing in the United Arab Emirates has been found after he was killed in what it described as a “heinous antisemitic terror incident.”
The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israel “will act with all means to seek justice with the criminals responsible for his death.” There was no immediate comment from the UAE.
Zvi Kogan, 28, an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who went missing on Thursday, ran a Kosher grocery store in the futuristic city of Dubai, where Israelis have flocked for commerce and tourism since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
The agreement has held through more than a year of soaring regional tensions unleashed by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack into southern Israel. But Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive in Gaza and its invasion of Lebanon, after months of fighting with the Hezbollah group, have stoked anger among Emiratis, Arab nationals and others living in the the UAE.
Iran, which supports Hamas and Hezbollah, has also been threatening to retaliate against Israel after a wave of airstrikes Israel carried out in October in response to an Iranian ballistic missile attack.
The Emirati government did not respond to a request for comment.
Early Sunday, the UAE's state-run WAM news agency acknowledged Kogan's disappearance but pointedly did not acknowledge he held Israeli citizenship, referring to him only as being Moldovan. The Emirati Interior Ministry described Kogan as being “missing and out of contact.”
“Specialised authorities immediately began search and investigation operations upon receiving the report,” the Interior Ministry said.
Netanyahu told a regular Cabinet meeting later Sunday that he was “deeply shocked” by Kogan's disappearance and death. He said he appreciated the cooperation of the UAE in the investigation and said that ties between the two countries would continue to be strengthened.
Israel's largely ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, condemned the killing and thanked Emirati authorities for "their swift action." He said he trusts they “will work tirelessly to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
Kogan was an emissary of the Chabad Lubavitch movement, a prominent and highly observant branch of ultra-Orthodox Judaism based in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood in New York City. It said he was last seen in Dubai. The UAE has a burgeoning Jewish community, with synagogues and businesses catering to kosher diners.
The Rimon Market, a Kosher grocery store that Kogan managed on Dubai's busy Al Wasl Road, was shut Sunday. As the wars have roiled the region, the store has been the target of online protests by supporters of the Palestinians. Mezuzahs on the front and the back doors of the market appeared to have been ripped off when an Associated Press journalist stopped by on Sunday.
Kogan's wife, Rivky, is a US citizen who lived with him in the UAE. She is the niece of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed in the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
The UAE is an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula and is also home to Abu Dhabi. Local Jewish officials in the UAE declined to comment.
While the Israeli statement did not mention Iran, Iranian intelligence services have carried out past kidnappings in the UAE.
Western officials believe Iran runs intelligence operations in the UAE and keeps tabs on the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living across the country.
Iran is suspected of kidnapping and later killing British Iranian national Abbas Yazdi in Dubai in 2013, though Tehran has denied involvement. Iran also kidnapped Iranian German national Jamshid Sharmahd in 2020 from Dubai, taking him back to Tehran, where he was executed in October.
