Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday mocked 25 BJP MPs from Karnataka saying that their work was restricted to nodding their head to whatever Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP president J.P. Nadda said.
He was addressing a huge gathering of guarantee beneficiaries after inaugurating various development works of Navalgund Vidhana Sabha constituency and initiating other works on Model High School premises in Navalgund of Dharwad district on Saturday.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said that although injustice was being meted out to Karnataka, the 25 MPs of BJP from Karnataka had never raised their voice against it in Parliament.
He said that while ₹4.3 lakh crore tax was being collected from Karnataka, it got back only ₹50,257 crore as grants in return. “That means for every one rupee given from Karnataka, the State got only ₹13 in return. I am not saying that you don’t give funds to Northern States of the country, but we urge you to give us our rightful share from the tax pool,” he said.
Quoting an old statement of Mr. Modi when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat questioning the lesser grants from the Centre, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that now that they were asking the same, they were being accused of trying to divide the country.
He sought an answer from the crowd whether it was wrong to ask for the rightful share and asked them to chant ‘our tax, our right’ before concluding his speech.
Earlier, speaking on the Kalasa Banduri Nala project, which was awaiting environmental clearance from the Centre, Mr. Siddaramaiah sought to know from Union Minister Pralhad Joshi on what he was doing. He also wondered why the people of the region were re-electing him although he failed to meet the aspirations of the people.
He said already they had floated tender for the Kalasa Banduri Nala project and work would start from the very next day of the Centre giving necessary clearance.
‘No dearth of funds’
Mr. Siddaramaiah said that there was no dearth of funds for development works. On the BJP’s allegation about empty exchequer, he sought to know from the crowd whether it was possible to launch works worth ₹150 crore if there was no funds with the government. “If the Centre gave us our due share, we will be able to take up more works,” he said.
Presiding over the function, Navalgund MLA N.H. Konraddi said that 62 works worth ₹200 crore had been initiated and he was committed to development of his constituency. The plan was to build 2,000 houses and develop all the roads in the coming days, he said.
Labour Minister Santosh Lad briefed about the benefits of the guarantee schemes and listed out the development works. The Chief Minister also flagged off 50 new buses of NWKRTC on the occasion. Ministers H.K. Patil, K.J. George, and Ramalinga Reddy, and senior officials were present.
