Plane blame: Coalition parties, BJP trade charges on funding flights

TNN
July 9, 2019

Bengaluru, Jul 9: As resort politics and private jets grabbed the headlines amid the political crisis in Karnataka, coalition parties and the BJP on Monday traded charges over who “sponsored” the flight of the rebel MLAs to Mumbai on Saturday and the aircraft that brought chief minister HD Kumaraswamy to Bengaluru from Delhi a day later.

After a Saturday evening special flight ferried the rebel Congress and JD(S) MLAs to Mumbai, another flight took minister H Nagesh to join them on Monday morning. The fact that the independent MLA was met at the airport by BJP state president BS Yeddyurappa’s personal assistant NH Santosh provided the ruling coalition with more ammunition to attack the opposition party.

The coalition government accused the BJP of “hypocrisy” for distancing itself from the resignations after a chartered aircraft owned by BJP Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar was used to fly the 10 rebel MLAs to Mumbai.

Deputy chief minister G Parameshwara immediately hit out at Chandrasekhar on social media. “Traces of BJP’s role in destabilising the govt are all over the place. It is disgraceful that the party is attempting to topple a democratically elected govt & grab power through the backdoor, when the state is reeling under one of the worst droughts,” Parameshwara tweeted, tagging a report on Chandrasekhar’s plane being used to ferry the rebels to the financial capital.

Chandrasekhar responded by asking Parameshwara not to blame him or the aircraft, stating that the plane was listed for commercial use and had been used by Congress ministers too.

“Dear @DrParameshwara — this ‘aircraft’ is a commercial charter - tht has been chartered by many ppl incldg ur own ministers in past! So don’t blame me or an ‘aircraft’ or @BJP4India for the problems in yr crooked corrupt opprtunistic ‘alliance’ [sic],” he tweeted.

BJP sympathisers even took the opportunity to charge chief minister HD Kumaraswamy with hiring a chartered plane of a company “allied” to the JSW Group to return to Bengaluru from New Delhi on Sunday night.

Kumaraswamy did use the plane, registered to Monnet, a joint venture company between JSW and AION, to fly from New Delhi to Bengaluru, CMO officials confirmed, but said the CM did not “specifically” seek the use of that aircraft.

“The plane was taken on rent, when the CM was leaving New York. There was no intent to pick a JSW plane,” a CMO spokesperson said. “The CMO used a contractor to hire the chartered plane.”

According to officials, Kumaraswamy was billed Rs 12 lakh for the special plane, which will be personally paid for by the chief minister.

The BJP reportedly has kept on a couple of special flights on standby to take more ruling party MLAs from Bengaluru to Mumbai.

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News Network
January 18,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 18: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the "flag-bearer" of the Indian culture and tradition.

In his speech at an event organised by Vedanta Bharati here, Shah said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi is touring across the globe as the flag bearer of the Indian culture and tradition." To buttress his point, the BJP National President said Modi took a holy dip in Ganga and attended Ganga Arati in Varanasi before taking oath as the Prime Minister.

It was for the first time that Modi sent red sander to Pashupatinath Temple in Nepal to perform special prayers on behalf of the government of India.

Shah also slammed the previous governments for their wrong interpretation of secularism, preventing them from honouring the best things of the country. "But after a long interval we have a Prime Minister who sends across the message that we have a lot to give to the world," Shah said.

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News Network
February 12,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 12: Mohammed Nalapad, son of Karnataka Congress MLA NA Harris, who allegedly rammed his sports car into vehicles and a kiosk, injuring 4, on Bellary road in Bengaluru on February 9, said that he was not in the car which met with the accident.

Bengaluru Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic, Ravikante Gowda told media, "Mohammed Nalapad appeared before the investigating officer today. He was arrested following interrogation. We are collecting evidence and will file a charge sheet shortly."

Nalapad is out on bail, in connection with the matter where he had assaulted a man in a pub in Bengaluru in 2018.

"I was not in the car which met with accident. I was travelling in a Lamborghini car which was moving ahead of the car. However, I called people to rescue the victims. We took them to the hospital and paid their hospital bill," said Mohammed Nalapad.

Further, details are awaited

Also Read: MLA N A Harris’ son Nalapad, out on bail, now crashes his luxury Bentley car, injures 4

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News Network
May 5,2020

Bengaluru, May 5: A 62-year-old woman from Vijayapura succumbed to coronavirus infection on Tuesday, taking the COVID-19 death toll in Karnataka to 28, a health official said.

The state has registered eight more COVID-19 cases in the past 19 hours, increasing the count of such cases to 659, the official added.

"Positive case 640, 62-year-old female resident of Vijayapura died on Tuesday due to cardiac arrest," the health official said.

Admitted to a designated hospital''s ICU on Sunday, the woman was also suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Bronchial Asthma (BA) and complained of breathlessness.

Among the eight fresh cases that emerged in the state, four were contacts of earlier cases, two with Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and one with travel history to Uttarakhand.

The health department is also tracing the contact history of a 30-year-old woman from Bengaluru Urban.

Incidentally, no new cases emerged from Davangere as 22 cases rocked the district on Monday.

Among the new cases, Bengaluru Urban contributed 3, followed by Bagalkote, 2, Ballari, Dakshina Kannada and Bhatkal in Uttara Kannada, 1 each.

Of the new cases, six are men and two women.

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