Ullal Muslims offer fruit juice to Hindu devotees during temple festival

Bengaluru, Apr 16: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister Dr Ashwath Narayan today said that if former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, being a law-abiding citizen, does not follow guidelines then action will be taken against him.

The Deputy CM made this comment when he was asked about Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil's marriage, which has been fixed on April 17 at a farmhouse near Bidadi in Ramnagar.

Narayan said: "Any violation of the guidelines will not be tolerated. We will ask the concerned authority to film the entire event and document it."

He said that so far Kumaraswamy has made public statements that guidelines will be followed.

"HD Kumaraswamy is a people's representative. He has been in public life for a long time. He should abide by the guidelines," Narayan said.

"Since he has been in a responsible position for a long time and he was the Chief Minister, guidelines must be followed in his son's marriage as per the rules amid COVID-19 scare.

After the marriage, there must not be any excuses. He cannot say that people came without an invitation," the Deputy Chief Minister added.

Kumaraswamy clarified that only his family members will attend the marriage and that there will be around 60 to 70 people.

"All guidelines will be followed as per the central government directives," he said.

Bengaluru, Jul 11: Karnataka on Saturday reported the biggest single-day spurt of 2,798 cases and a record 70 related fatalities, taking the total number of infections in the state to 36,216, the health department said.

The day also saw a record 880 patients getting discharged after recovery.

Out of 2,798 fresh cases, a whopping 1,533 cases were from Bengaluru urban alone.

The previous biggest single-day spike was recorded on July 10 with 2,313 cases.

As of July 11 evening, cumulatively 36,216 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 613 deaths and 14,716 discharges, the health department said in its bulletin.

It said out of 20,883 active cases, 20,379 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 504 are in ICU.

Out of 70 deaths reported, 23 are from Bengaluru urban, 8 from Mysuru, five from Dakshina Kannada, among others.

Most of the dead are either with a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) or Influenza-like illness (ILI).

Out of 2,798 cases tested positive today, contacts of the majority of the cases are still under tracing.

Among the districts where the new cases were reported, Bengaluru urban accounts for 1533 cases, followed by Dakshina Kannada 186, Udupi 90, Mysuru 83, Tumakuru 78, Dharwad 77 and Yadgir 74.

Bengaluru urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 16,862 infections, followed by DakshinaKannada 2,026 and Kalaburagi 2,024.

A total of 7.99 lakh samples were tested so far, out of which 20,587 were tested on Saturday alone.

So far 7.46 lakh samples have been reported as negative, and out of them 17,488 were reported negative today.

Bengaluru,  Jul 9: Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said that he was opposed to a tie-up with Janata Dal-Secular in the last Lok Sabha elections but the party high command did not listen to him.

"I had suggested that we should fight alone (in Lok Sabha elections) because JD-S votes would not have come to us and our votes would not have gone to JD-S," Siddaramaiah told reporters here.

Congress leader said that he was the only one to make the suggestion and he did not get support.

"I was the only one to raise a voice that's why it was not heard by (party) high command and I did not get support. We might have won over seven seats in parliament election if we had fought alone," he said.

After forming government in Karnataka in 2018 with support of JD-S, Congress had fought the 2019 general election in a pre-poll alliance with the party. Congress could only one seat of the 21 it contested and JD-S also won one seat of the seven it contested.