Alleging that the Congress government in the State had become “defunct”, a delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party leaders met Governor H.R. Bhardwaj on Wednesday and appealed to him to direct Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his Cabinet colleagues to focus on drought relief and drinking water supply.
The BJP delegation comprising State president Pralhad Joshi, former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda and former Deputy Chief Ministers K.S. Eshwarappa and R. Ashok alleged that the government had ceased to function after the Lok Sabha elections were announced as most of the Ministers were still in a holiday mood even as the State is reeling under drought and severe shortage of drinking water. “Such a laidback attitude of those in the government has worsened the water crisis and inconvenienced people,” alleged Mr. Joshi.
Ridiculing Mr. Siddaramaiah for blaming the model code of conduct as an obstacle for taking up relief works, Mr. Joshi maintained that the code does not come in the way of providing drinking water to drought-hit areas.
The BJP leaders pointed out that the government was, however, over-enthusiastic in taking up “anti-people” measures like increasing bus fares and enforcing load-shedding close on the heels of the Lok Sabha polls. Pointing out that the BMTC bus fares had been hiked three times in the last 11 months, while KSRTC bus fares had been hiked twice in this duration, they demanded a rollback of the hike.
They also demanded an immediate withdrawal of load-shedding in the State. They disagreed with Minister for Energy D.K. Shivakumar that the State had to withdraw the enforcement of provisions of Section 11 of the Electricity Act which makes it mandatory for the power generators in the State to supply their power to Escoms in the wake of they obtaining a stay from courts in the neighbouring States. Accusing the government of not making enough effort to vacate the stay, they suspected that the present power crisis was an artificially created one to help private power generators.
They also took exception to the Chief Minister’s claims that the present economic condition did not provide for implementing the pre-poll promise of providing laptops to PU students and sanitary napkins to girl students. They urged the Governor to direct the government to implement all the poll promises.
Mr. Sadananda Gowda told reporters that the Governor had given them a patient hearing and assured them of conveying their demands to the Chief Minister.
‘Drop AbhaychandraTaking serious exception to Minister of State for Youth Services and Sports Abhaychandra Jain reportedly threatening a journalist in public, the BJP leaders demanded that he be sacked. “The Minister has lost the moral and legal authority to hold the constitutional post in the wake of such behaviour,” they said in the memorandum .
