Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council D.V. Sadananda Gowda on Tuesday objected to the Congress government’s efforts to paint the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in a bad light.
Initiating the debate on the State Budget, Mr. Sadananda Gowda said the Chief Minister himself had admitted that the economy was plagued by inflation and drought in the previous year.
While inflation was caused by the inadequacies of the UPA government in the Centre, no one could be held responsible for drought. Still, the State’s GDP had improved by 5.9 per cent last year, he said.
Mobilisation
Rebuking the Congress for accusing the BJP of lagging in resource mobilisation, Mr. Sadananda Gowda said the government had mobilised Rs. 81,461 crore in 2011-12 (during his stewardship) and Rs. 94,216 crore during 2012-13, an increase of Rs. 12,755 crore. But, Mr. Siddaramaiah had pegged the resource mobilisation for 2013-14 at Rs. 97,986 crore, which is just Rs. 3,770 core more than the previous year, he said.
He said in reality, the loan burden had increased after Mr. Siddaramaiah had taken over as Chief Minister. Reeling out statistics in support of his claims, he said the budget presented by him in 2012 had depended on loans of Rs. 21,908 crore.
This had reduced to Rs. 21,767 crore in the budget of Mr. Jagadish Shettar in February 2013. But the quantum of loans had increased to Rs. 22,396 crore in the budget presented by Mr. Siddaramaiah a few days ago, he said.
