Bengaluru, Mar 17: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi was afraid of the Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as he started his campaign from Kharge's home district Kalaburagi.

He said the party is sure to win 20 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka including Kalaburagi.

"He (Modi) is afraid of the Leader of Opposition (in Rajya Sabha) Mallikarjun Kharge. Hence, he started his election campaign from there (Kalaburagi). We will win 20 seats including Kalaburagi," Shivakumar told reporters here.

Modi started his election campaign in Karnataka from Kalaburagi on Saturday. His next campaign in the state will be in Shivamogga.

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He also said the next list of candidates for the Lok Sabha elections will be announced on March 20.

"There is a meeting on March 19 (about the rest of the candidates). We will announce the list on March 20," the DCM said.

He said he is convening the Taluk level nominated presidents of guarantee schemes on March 21 to assign them to work for the party.

The Congress had won only one out of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 whereas the BJP secured 25 seats. An independent MP Sumalatha Ambareesh too won the election with the BJP's support in 2019.

The Janata Dal (Secular) too got one seat in Hassan. Now, the regional party has forged an alliance with the BJP and become part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

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ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.

“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.

The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.

Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.