Siddaramaiah attacked for announcing schemes without Cabinet nod

Barely a day after the swearing-in ceremony of new Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the Bharatiya Janata Party launched its attack on him.

The Opposition BJP leaders on Tuesday not only took serious exception to the Chief Minister announcing various welfare schemes even before the formation of a full-fledged Cabinet, but also warned him against any efforts to scuttle its flagship programmes or the anti-cow slaughter Bill that has been adopted by the State legislature.

The former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda led the attack against Mr. Siddaramaiah at the BJP legislature party meeting held here on Tuesday. He accused the new Chief Minister of trying to hoodwink people by announcing a slew of populist schemes before the formation of the full-fledged Cabinet.

“Mere announcements will not serve any purpose as it is the Cabinet that has to clear these proposals. The announcement should have been made after getting the clearance of a full-fledged Cabinet,” he observed while maintaining that Mr. Siddaramaiah had faltered by acting in haste.

He also took exception to the indications given by Mr. Siddaramaiah that the new government may drop some of the programmes taken up during the BJP government. “The BJP will seriously resist any such attempts. We will fight both inside and outside the legislature if the government tries to tinker with any of our pro-people programmes,” he declared.

Later addressing a press conference, BJP spokesperson Ayanoor Manjunath was critical of Mr. Siddaramaiah for hinting that he may scrap the controversial anti-cow slaughter Bill.

“Any such attempts would go against the sentiments of people and the BJP will not keep quiet then,” he cautioned. Meanwhile, the BJP that has convened a meeting of its defeated candidates and district units’ presidents in Bangalore on Wednesday to introspect the defeat has also decided to hold district-level meetings on May 20 and 21 to analyse the reasons for the defeat.

Mr. Manjunath said the party would also hold a membership drive for three days from May 24. Similarly, all the district units would observe the jail bharo protest on May 27 as per the call given by its national unit demanding the resignation of the UPA government.

Interestingly, before launching criticism against Mr. Siddaramaiah, the party congratulated him for becoming the Chief Minister.