“Hundred days of governance and 101 mistakes…” This is how the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party described the performance of the Congress government in the State that has completed 100 days in power. The BJP on Saturday brought out a book, Hundred Days and 101 Mistakes , to counter the publicity campaign of the Congress which had earlier released a booklet, Hundred Days and Hundreds of Resolutions to mark the occasion.
The 24-page book of the BJP lists 101 alleged “mistakes” of the Siddaramaiah government, including announcement of the Anna Bhagya scheme “in a hurry” by the Chief Minister without waiting for the formation of the Cabinet, what it called “messing up” with the Common Entrance Test counselling, introduction of a provision to disqualify village panchayat members for their failure to hold gram sabhas, withdrawal of anti-cow slaughter Bill and termination of the management committees of Muzrai temples.
In addition to this, the BJP also released a book listing 100 alleged scams during the UPA government’s tenure at the Centre. Releasing both the books, BJP State unit president Pralhad Joshi said the party would take them to people by launching a door-to-door campaign after the Ganesh festival to build a tempo for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
He accused the government of adopting a policy of appeasing the minorities. Alleging that Ministers had become inactive, he said most of them were focussing on their Assembly constituencies rather than their portfolios. He specifically picked up Minister of State for Agriculture Krishna Byre Gowda for criticism and accused him of failing to visit both drought-affected and rain-affected areas in the State.
On JD(S)
Replying to queries on the Janata Dal (S) deciding to sever links with it after the short-duration alliance during the Lok Sabha bypolls, Mr. Joshi shot back: “We decided to forge an alliance with the JD(S) only after its State unit president H.D. Kumaraswamy approached us. It is the JD(S) which got our leader R. Ashok to jointly campaign for them. We extended support to them with the main intention of defeating the Congress. If they want to go away from us now, we will not go behind them.”
He sought to downplay Karnataka Janata Paksha president B.S. Yeddyurappa’s statement that he was willing to join hands with the Congress. When asked about the status of the proposal to strengthen ties with the KJP or bring back Mr. Yeddyurappa into the party fold, he said: “The party high command is seized of the matter and we have already sent a report to the high command about the issue.”
