PM Modi to kickstart BJP LS poll campaign from Cong President Kharge's home turf in Karnataka
Bengaluru (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will kickstart the BJP's Lok Sabha poll campaign in Karnataka by addressing a public meeting in Kalaburagi on March 16, the party's state general secretary V Sunil Kumar said on Wednesday.
Kalaburagi is the home district of AICC President M Mallikarjun Kharge, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from there in 2009 and 2014 but lost to BJP's Umesh Jadhav in the last general elections.
The Congress is likely to field the 81-year-old Kharge's son-in-law Radhakrishna Doddamani this time, according to party sources.
Modi will also address a public gathering in Shivamogga on March 18, Sunil Kumar told reporters at the BJP state headquarters here. "The public meeting will be held at NV Playground on March 16 at Kalaburagi. The event in Shivamogga will take place at Allamaprabhu Ground on March 18."
Karnataka is the most important State for the BJP in south India as it's only here that it had held power in the past.
The BJP swept the previous Lok Sabha elections bagging 25 seats out of the total 28 in the State, while an independent backed by the party also won.
The Congress and the JD(S) headed by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, who were running a coalition government back then and fought the elections together, came a cropper winning a seat each.
But the political landscape has changed significantly since then. The Congress scored a landslide victory in the May Assembly polls, winning 135 seats in the 224-member Assembly. The BJP and JD(S) slumped to 66 and 19 seats, respectively.
The JD(S) joined the BJP-led NDA last September and the two parties are fighting the elections together.
Sunil Kumar said BJP president J P Nadda, Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath along with other national leaders will visit different Lok Sabha constituencies and address public gatherings in the coming weeks.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
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.
