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Bengaluru, Mar 18: Karnataka Congress President DK Shivakumar on Wednesday met the Director-General of Police in Bengaluru and demanded police protection for Madhya Pradesh Congress MLAs and the removal of BJP workers from the hotel in Bengaluru, where the legislators are currently lodged.

"The (Madhya Pradesh) legislators have come here and have requested police protection, that is all. Let the police give them protection, our candidate (Digvijaya Singh) has come, let him meet the legislators. Why are BJP workers protecting them? We know that they are under threat and hence we need to vacate them (BJP workers)," Shivakumar told reporters here after the meeting.

"We will give protection to our men and that is why we are telling them they cannot stop us. They should be in a free and fair position. I have communicated to DGP that BJP needs to vacate," he added.

Earlier today, Congress' Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh was placed under preventive arrest after he sat on a dharna near Ramada Hotel here, allegedly for not being allowed by police to meet the 21 Congress rebel MLAs lodged in a hotel.

"I am a Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh, voting is scheduled for March 26. My MLAs have been kept here, they want to speak to me, their phones have been snatched, the police is not letting me speak to them saying there is a security threat to MLAs," Singh told reporters.

Singh who sat on the dharna with a face mask on said: "We were expecting them to come back, but when we saw they're being held back, messages came from their families...I personally spoke to five MLAs, they said they're captive, phones snatched away, there is Police in front of every room. They're being followed 24/7," Singh said.

The development comes amid the political crisis in Madhya Pradesh after the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress party.

Scindia's departure was followed by 22 Congress MLAs resigning from the party as well as from the state legislative Assembly.

The resignation of these MLAs has left the Kamal Nath government below the majority mark.

Mangaluru, May 12: Air India will operate two flights - one each from Doha and Muscat - to bring back stranded Kannadigas from Qatar and Oman to Mangaluru next week. 

The flight from Muscat to Mangaluru will be operated on May 20 via Bengaluru. It will depart from Muscat International Airport at 1.15 pm local time and reach Bengaluru at 6.15 pm. After the layover at Bengaluru airport, the flight will take off at 7.15 pm and land at Mangaluru International Airport at around 8.10 pm.

Doha – Bengaluru – Mangaluru flight is will be operated May 22. The flight will take off from Doha at 1.30 pm local time and will land at Bengaluru at 8 pm. It will take off from Bengaluru at 9 pm and land at Mangaluru airport around 9.35 pm.

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.