Hitting back at Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa who had reportedly credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the Anna Bhagya scheme in the State, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Siddaramaiah said that it was the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government under the leadership of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that had introduced the Food Security Act in the country and not the BJP government under Mr. Modi. He was addressing a public meeting of oppressed communities at Ganesh Maidan here on Sunday.
“The Chief Minister should gather facts before making such statements. If Anna Bhagya is BJP’s programme, why then it has not introduced the scheme in other States too? Only Karnataka introduced such a pro-poor programme when the Congress was in power. The scheme has been instrumental in addressing hunger among the poor in the State,” he said.
Reiterating the Congress’ commitment for ensuring the welfare and development of marginalised sections, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that it was the Congress government under him that had introduced reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in allocation of civil work contracts up to ₹ 50 lakh.
“We even planned to increase the contract amount from ₹ 50 lakh to ₹ 1 crore. In fact, the government should amend the Act to increase the contract amount to ₹ 2 crore under the reserved category,” he said. Pointing to the renaming of Hyderabad Karnataka as Kalyana Karnataka, he attacked the BJP over what he called name-changing politics while clarifying that his party had no objection to it.
“The BJP government has changed the region’s name from Hyderabad Karnataka to Kalyana Karnataka. We don’t have any problem. But, we do have a problem with their name-changing politics. Mere changing a name would in no way help a region develop,” he said. Terming the BJP as anti-Dalit and anti-backward classes party, Mr. Siddaramaiah warned the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Communities against rallying behind the saffron party, which, he said, was principally against reservation.
