Describing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as “laggard and irresponsible”, the former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar has said that the “fear of getting his sleep disturbed” Mr. Siddaramaiah did not accept the China tour invitation extended to him by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaking to presspersons in Hubballi on Saturday before inspecting a few development works in the city, Mr. Shettar lambasted the Chief Minister for not accepting the invitation. “His visit to China would have opened up new avenues for the development of Karnataka and it would also have boosted his and the State’s image. But being irresponsible, he missed the chance,” Mr Shettar said.
‘Loan Bhagya’
Criticising the various welfare schemes launched by the Siddaramaiah government, he said that in the last two years the government had given the people “Loan Bhagya” as the government had procured more than Rs. 42,000 crore in loan in just two years. Having failed miserably in alleviating poverty despite being in power for more than five decades, the Congress government was not interested in uplifting the poor but wanted them to remain poor, he said.
“They are more interested in announcing freebies and handing over ‘saala bhagya’ to the people,” he said.
Poor governance
Mr. Shettar said that in the last two years, the Congress government had succeeded neither in creating employment nor in attracting investors. Instead, it was Siddaramaiah’s negligence that drove away companies including Hero Moto Corp, he said.
The former Chief Minister said that the State Cabinet, including the Chief Minister, was not interested in giving good governance.
An achievement of just over 12 per cent in programme implementation in majority of the departments was an indication of it, he said.
Taking a dig at the ‘Sarvodaya Samavesh’ (Congress worker’s mega meet) organised by the Siddaramaiah government, he said the BJP had brought out a booklet on the “non-performance of the Congress government”. Most of the people were fed up with the government and the rural voters would teach the government a lesson in the gram panchayat elections, he said.
