‘Take people into confidence before implementing the project’

B.S. Yeddyurappa, former Chief Minister and Shivamogga MP, said on Monday that the State government should implement the Yettinahole project only after taking the people of the coastal region into confidence.

Speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of the second phase of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Raitha Chaitanya Yatre, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that the government had already gone ahead with the project and even purchased pipelines for it. But it was necessary to have more discussions on the project and understand its problems.

The project should not create problems to the people of the region. Experts should be sent to convince the people about it.

The government should get a report from experts on this project. The project should be implemented in a manner that it does not affect the people of the coastal region, he said.

On the adverse comments by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on the Raitha Chaitanya Yatre, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that the BJP was doing its as the Opposition party in highlighting the failures of the government.

“The State government does not call a session of the legislature to discuss important issues. In the last nine months, the session has been held for only 43 days, which was one of shortest periods,” he said.

Mr. Yeddyurappa said that though 123 taluks in the State had been declared as drought hit, the Ministers were not touring the affected regions. Mr. Siddaramaiah was behaving as if he was Chief Minister only for Bengaluru and Mysuru districts. “People are angry at the tardy pace of progress of drought relief. We are only conveying the feelings of the people,” Mr. Yeddyurappa said.

To another query, Mr. Yeddyurappa said that he had no desire to become a Minister in the Union government. When the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had asked him to become a Minister, he had refused it. He was concentrating in building the party in the State.

“I want to bring the BJP into power in the State by winning 150 seats. Though I am a MP, I am concentrating on the State,” he said.

On the Kalasa-Banduri project, Mr. Yeddyurappa blamed the Congress for its tardy implementation. Mr. Siddaramaiah should convince Congress president Sonia Gandhi and other Congress party leaders on this project and then approach the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on it, he said.

Shobha Karandlaje and B. Sriramulu, MPs, and Sunil Kumar, Kota Srinivas Poojary, T.V. Hegde, Sukumar Shetty, Vijayshankar, BJP leaders, were present.