Urging electors to dislodge the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the State in the 2023 Assembly elections, former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Sunday that the Janata Dal (S) cannot come to power on its own.
“For the JD(S), anybody would do. For the JD(S), secularism remains only in the name. It has no ideology and is opportunistic. We had extended support to the JD(S) [in 2018] only to prevent the communal BJP from coming to power,” the Congress leader said at a function here. “The programmes that we gave were for all sections of society. Is there discrimination based on caste?”
He said that the BJP government was undoing all the good work that the Congress government did. He pointed to the reduction of quantum of rice given under the Anna Bhagya scheme, closure of Indira Canteens, and cancellation of houses allotted to the poor. “Housing Minister V. Somanna only speaks and does no work. Did former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa give any good programmes except for looting the State? Food and Civil Supplies Minister Umesh Katti says the ration being given is enough,” he said.
Exuding confidence that the Congress would return to power in Karnataka in 2023, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that they would increase the quantity of Anna Bhagya rice to 5 kg and also reopen the Indira Canteen. He also criticised the Union government for price rise and for the sale of government assets, among other things.
