Chief Minister Siddharamaiah’s government is not spending central funds, Shobha Karandlaje, BJP leader and former minister, alleged on Saturday. Addressing workers and leaders at the party’s district executive committee meeting, she also raised doubts about misuse of the funds.
After Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister, he had increased annual funds released to the State by Rs. 25,000 crore. However, the State government is not spending that money properly. It is not even distributing crop loss relief to farmers who suffered drought or floods, she said. She alleged that the money was “rotting” with the deputy commissioners in the districts as the government gave no proper guidelines on how to spend it. This is despite the fact that the PM released Rs. 1520 crore in two days of BJP leaders asking for it, he said.
She alleged the government was ‘systematically killing off’ all the pro-people welfare programmes started by B.S. Yeddyurappa when he was Chief Minister. While rural development schemes such as Suvarna Grama have been scrapped, urban development schemes like Nagarothana have slowed down. The number of beneficiaries under the Bhagya Lakshmi scheme has reduced to a third of the original. While Mr. Yeddyurappa released insurance bonds of Rs. 20,000 to 3.9 lakh poor families on the birth of girl children, the Congress government is giving the benefits only to one lakh below poverty line families, she said.
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The government had not acted against rural development department officials who had misused Rs. 3500 crore by depositing it in banks, instead of releasing it to Panchayat Raj bodies, the leader said.
She also alleged that some Congress leaders were diverting rice meant for distribution among the poor and ‘selling it to Amma canteens in the neighbouring State.’
The State government is neither spending its own money, nor is it asking the union government for assistance. That is because the government is not working at all. Ministers are not touring districts. I asked my party workers who was the horticulture minister in the State, and they did not know. This is the amount of disconnect of the government with the people she said.
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Reacting to Congress leader and former railway minister Mallikarjun Kharge’s charge that the centre was not releasing money for railway projects in the State, Ms. Karandlaje said the senior leader should ask Siddharamaiah to release the State’s share of the cost of the projects first. She, however, did not mention Mr. Kharge’s name.
She revealed that Union Power minister Piyush Goel had transferred a coal mine to Karnataka , that was earlier allotted to Maharashtra, on the request by BJP leaders from Karnataka.
The Congress government is punishing whistle-blowers. An officer who uncovered a Rs. 2500 crore scam in BBMP, has been transferred 20 times in less than two years. The government is misusing the CID to close files of sensitive cases and give clean chits to leaders accused of serious crime, she said. She alleged that the State had transferred the D. K Ravi case to the CBI after allowing CID officers to destroy all evidence. She alleged senior IPS officer Suresh Mohammad sought voluntary retirement after he was not allowed to function honestly.
She alleged that the `murder politics’ of Kerala had entered Karnataka with 14 RSS and BJP leaders and workers being murdered after the Congress government came to power.
People of the State have no faith in the government. They want change, she said. Even Congress MLAs are upset with the performance of Siddharamaiah’s government, she said.
Asking her party members to work hard, Ms. Karandlaje said, “We need to strengthen the party at booth levels, spread word about the good deeds of the union government among the people and organise at least one agitation against the State government every month.” We should make the people feel we are their voice in the legislature and outside.