Reacting strongly to Bharatiya Janata Party-led Uttar Pradesh government’s move on the construction of Ram temple at Ayodhya, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that the BJP was interested in keeping sensitive issues alive for political purposes. He accused BJP leaders of indulging in communal politics instead of focusing on developmental programmes.
He was addressing at a public meeting in Bidar on Sunday evening after inaugurating developmental works worth Rs. 1,000 crore.
Referring to BJP national president Amit Shah’s three-day visit to Karnataka, the Chief Minister said that all the strategies and equations of BJP leaders for coming back to power in the next Assembly elections were going to fail even if Mr. Shah stayed in Karnataka and campaigned.
Showcasing the achievements of the Congress government in the past four-and-a-half years, Mr. Siddramaiah said that the people had realised that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had “utterly failed to deliver” on what he had promised during last Lok Sabha elections. He slammed the Prime Minster for making hollow promises of bringing back the black money stashed in foreign tax havens within 100 days of assuming power at the Centre.
“The BJP had, in its poll manifesto, promised to create two crore jobs every year in India after coming to power. But, it could employ only 4 lakh people in the last three years. After all of their poll promises turned out to be a hoax, the BJP leaders themselves have now stopped talking about ‘Achche din’.”
Mr. Siddaramaiah demanded that the Union government waive farm loans borrowed from nationalised banks, just as he did with farm loans from cooperative institutions.
He asserted that his government had done its best to fulfil most of the promises made in the manifesto. “The then BJP government in the State had allocated just Rs.21,000 crore for Special Component Plan (SCP) and Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) in its five-year period, whereas the Congress government allocated Rs.80,000 crore, nearly four times more.”
Recalling how, during BJP rule in the State, many Ministers including Chief Minister Yeddyurappa landed behind bars on corruption charges, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the BJP did not have the moral right to make allegations against the Congress.
Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha M. Mallikarjun Kharge, Minister for Municipal Administration Eshwar Khandre, Minister for Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil and Congress MLAs were present.
