Members of the Bharatiya Janata Party, led by Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar, on Wednesday walked out of the Legislative Assembly after terming the State Budget “anti-people”. They alleged that the Congress had failed to fulfil the promises it made before coming to power.
The BJP members, who heard Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s reply and clarification to their queries, criticised the budget saying that it would not help the people as it was “bereft of any meaningful programme”. Earlier, quoting the Mid-term Fiscal Plan, Janata Dal (Secular) MLA H.D. Kumaraswamy expressed concern over the capital expenditure falling to 3 per cent. He said it would be detrimental to the State finances if the capital expenditure was not raised to 4 or 4.5 per cent. He said allocation to the irrigation sector had been reduced from 18 per cent to 16 per cent and that to the power sector was only 8 per cent. Mr. Kumaraswamy demanded that power be supplied to irrigation pumpsets during daytime, citing cases of farmers suffering snakebites when they go to switch on IP sets at night.
N. Cheluvarayaswamy (JD-S) demanded an eight-line expressway between Bangalore and Mysore, but said the project should not be entrusted to private contractors.
Mr. Siddaramaiah, who promised that he would consider their suggestions, told Mr. Cheluvarayaswamy that the Union government was considering upgrading the Bangalore-Mysore highway into a national highway and linking it to Mangalore.
