Bengaluru, 6 July

BJP on Sunday demanded an apology from Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for attributing a spate of cardiac arrests in Karnataka to Covid-19 vaccination, after an expert panel found no evidence to support the claim.

A panel constituted by the government concluded that there is no single cause behind the observed increase in sudden cardiac deaths. Rather, it described the phenomenon as multifactorial, with behavioural, genetic and environmental risk factors contributing.

The BJP said Siddaramaiah must issue an unconditional apology for making what it called a “baseless allegation”.

Calling Siddaramaiah’s remarks “irresponsible,” Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said premier national institutions, including the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and AIIMS-Delhi, have clarified that there is no scientific evidence linking Covid-19 vaccines to the recent heart attacks.

“Siddaramaiah is deliberately making such statements because the vaccine was developed during Prime Minister Modi’s tenure,” Joshi said in Hubballi. “They assumed the pandemic would politically damage the Prime Minister—people would suffer and turn against him. But PM Modi handled Covid with sensitivity and care.”

Joshi said that because Prime Minister Narendra Modi was widely credited with managing the pandemic effectively, the opposition was resorting to unfounded claims.