The Bharatiya Janata Party, which withdrew dharna over the controversial diary, sparred with the Congress on several other fronts with Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar even accusing the Siddaramaiah government of showing an anti-upper caste bias in clearing files.
Alleging that the Congress government had codewords such as “jilebi files” (GLB — Gowda, Lingayat, and Brahmin) and “non-jilebi” (OBC, SC, and ST), he said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah favoured only the latter. Speaking at the Legislative Assembly on Monday, Mr. Shettar said the government was clearing files on “caste lines” and discriminating against upper caste people on all fronts.
Irked by this, P.M. Narendraswamy of the Congress said there was no substance in such charges.
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Mr. Shettar also said there has been discrimination in giving honorarium to Hindu priests of Muzrai temples and Pesh Imams of mosques. Honorarium to Pesh Imams has been increased from ₹3,100 to ₹4,000 a month, but priests of nearly 40,000 Muzrai temples in the State are paid ₹3,000 a month, he said.
GDP growth
Earlier in the day, speaking on the budget, Mr. Shettar termed the government a “non-performer” as average budgetary expenditure till January-end was just 69%. He termed the decline in Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) growth rate as an “indication of maladministration”.
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Mr. Shettar expressed concern over the decline in GSDP from the level of 10.5% in 2013-14 when Mr. Siddaramaiah took over as the Chief Minister to 6.9% now. Mr. Siddaramaiah then sought to remind Mr. Shettar about the three consecutive droughts, which severely affected the farm sector. He also wondered if the decline in Centre’s GDP growth rate too was an indication of bad governance.
The Chief Minister even took a dig at the BJP over withdrawal of the dharna, saying that only negative feedback from the general public had made them do so. He added that the BJP leaders hurling corruption charges against the Congress was like devil quoting scriptures.