DKS mentions religion of Siddaganga seer’s doctor, later says sorry

TNN
December 11, 2018

Bengaluru, Dec 11: Water resources and medical education minister DK Shivakumar has raked up a controversy, stating the religion of the doctor who is treating Siddaganga mutt pontiff Shivakumara Swami in Chennai.

“I’m very happy that Shivakumara Swami is fast recovering. It’s all because of the expertise and effort of Dr Mohammed Rela, a Muslim, who runs the world-class Dr Rela Institute and Medical Centre. Therefore, we all should keep one thing in mind that there is no point in playing politics in the name of caste or religion,” Shivakumar said, soon after he arrived at Sambra airport in Belagavi to attend the winter session of the legislature.

His statement, an apparent move to appease minorities, triggered angry reactions from the junior pontiff of the mutt and the BJP leaders who accused him of playing politics in the name of religion.

On Saturday, Shivakumar had called on the 111-year-old seer in the hospital. On Friday, the pontiff was airlifted to the Chennai hospital where he underwent an operation to treat his liver and bile duct infection.

Junior pontiff Siddalinga Swami said: “There is no caste in noble professions like doctors and teachers. The minister’s statement is in bad taste. Our society considers doctors as equivalent to God. For them, there is no caste or creed.”

BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa and former deputy CM R Ashoka hit out at Shivakumar for “playing politics in the name of the Walking God.”

“As a senior minister, he should not stoop to such a level. He is free to play politics in Vidhana Soudha or on the streets but not in hospitals and mutts,’’ they added.

‘No intention to hurt anyone’

If my statement has hurt the mutt or anyone, I tender an apology. I had no intention of playing politics, as is being alleged by the BJP. After visiting the hospital, I was impressed with the expertise and dedication of the doctor.

So I made that statement DK Shivakumar, medical education minister Pontiff recovering Shivakumara Swami is recovering after the surgery at the Chennai hospital. In a statement on Monday, the hospital’s CMD Dr Mohamed Rela said: “He is beginning to mobilise in the intensive care unit and his vitals are stable.”

Comments

KAMAL
 - 
Wednesday, 12 Dec 2018

DKS should not have commented on religion of the Doctor.  He should have just praised the good job being done by Doctor.   BJP is on watch of any error from its opponents.   Statement from DKS was in error and he apologised for it.  However, BJP is misusing it and trying to gain political benefit out of it.   They should know that people cant be foold always and latest election result is the example.   I hope people will reject BJP completely in MP election.

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News Network
July 19,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 19: A total of 4,120 new COVID-19 cases were reported from Karnataka on Sunday, taking the total number of 63,772 in the state, informed the state's health department.

Out of the total cases reported in the last 24 hours, 2,156 were reported from Bengaluru.
The total figure includes 39,370 active cases, 23,065 recoveries, and 91 deaths.

"Karnataka crossed the 10-lakh-tests milestone today. So far, we conducted 10,20,830 tests across 88 labs in the state and 35,834 tests today," Minister for Medical Education of Karnataka tweeted on Sunday. 

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News Network
January 24,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 24: The JD(S) is looking to leverage anti-Citizen (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) sentiment sweeping the country to revive itself and will hold protests in Bengaluru and New Delhi.

The Bengaluru protest is scheduled for Friday. At a meeting of party workers in Bengaluru on Thursday, party patriarch HD Deve Gowda and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy urged the rank and file to participate in the rally to send out a loud and clear message to the BJP.

"The BJP has set out to make Muslims second-grade citizens. India has 40 crore Muslims, can these communal forces eliminate them all?" Gowda said in his address. "We should have the guts to launch a massive protest at Jantar Mantar. We should be prepared to go to jail in the fight against [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi and [Union home minister] Amit Shah."

Gowda said he will lead the rally in Delhi and urged secular parties to unite to take on the BJP. "It is important that regional parties, which share a secular ideology, unite on a common agenda and fight the BJP. Bihar, Kerala and Odisha have said they will not implement CAA. The sentiment is likely to spread to other states," Gowda said.

Kumaraswamy said not only Muslims but many other communities will also bear the brunt of BJP’s "divisive politics". "This pair of Hakka-Bukka [Modi and Shah] is not targeting Muslims alone," he said. "For them, all communities other than upper caste Hindus are inferior Shudras. They will treat even Lingayats, Vokkaligas and Dalits with the same contempt."

The former CM made a special appeal to Lingayats, who generally back the BJP, to stop supporting the saffron party’s caste-oriented politics. "You had appreciated my farm loan waiver scheme and promised support in the elections. But, the results were contrary to that," he said.

The JD(S) passed three resolutions including one to condemn the Centre for enacting CAA. The others were to protest against the Centre’s indifference to the floods in the state and the failed economic policy of the Centre.

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News Network
May 14,2020

Bengaluru, May 14: Reformed underworld don Muthappa Rai, who was battling cancer for the past year, was said to be in a critical condition at Manipal Hospital in Bengaluru, late Wednesday night. Doctors said he was on life-support at the time of going to press. Rai (68), realtor, entrepreneur and founder of pro-Kannada organisation Jaya Karnataka, had retired from public life after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was part of an ongoing investigation into gangster Ravi Pujari, who was extradited from Senegal recently.

Born in Puttur into a Bunt family, he started out as a bank employee in Bengaluru, and later ran a live band restaurant. In 1994, he was shot in a Bengaluru court by a man dressed as a lawyer, after which he was bedridden for a couple of years.

Rai Moved to Dubai in 1996. He was deported from the UAE to India in 2002, and was arrested in Bengaluru when HT Sangliana was the police commissioner. Both Rai and Pujari had allegedly been associated with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

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