Karnataka BJP MP, MLA son test Corona positive

Bengaluru: Umesh Jadhav, the Bharatiya Janata Party's Lok Sabha member from Karnataka's Gulbarga, his son Avinash, an MLA from Chincholi, and both their wives have tested positive for Covid-19 and are under treatment, an official said on Monday.

"Umesh and his wife Gaythri, Avinash and his wife Meghana tested positive for the virus and are in the state-run Bowring hospital in the city. They all are asymptomatic and responding to the treatment," the official told IANS. Gulbarga is 625 km north of Bengaluru.

"Personal assistants of father and son and their (Jadhavs) drivers, who also tested positive for the infection, have been admitted for treatment at a state-run designated hospital in Gulbarga," said the official. Nearly a dozen people who came in contact with Jadhav's family in Gulbarga have been asked to take the Covid test and remain in home quarantine.

Umesh Jadhav defeated veteran Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge in the May 2019 general elections from the Eeserved (SC) parliamentary seat Gulbarga, after he resigned from the Chincholi assembly segment in March 2018 as a Congress MLA and joined the BJP.

Avinash won the Chincholi assembly seat in a by-election held with the parliamentary polls in May 2019.

The Jadhavs are the latest among the party's lawmakers to get infected by the virus in the state after Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha member V. Srinivas Prasad tested positive on August 18 and was under treatment at a private hospital in the city.

Scores of politicians, including state Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa, Opposition Congress leader Siddaramaiah, state Cabinet Ministers B.R. Sriramulu, S.T. Somashekar, Anand Singh and C.T. Ravi, MLAs and MLCs, had tested positive and recovered from the infection over the last two months.