The State BJP’s core committee meeting, chaired by Home Minister Amit Shah here on Sunday, resolved to counter the Congress’ campaign against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi government over the alleged injustice to Karnataka by providing comprehensive information on release of Central funds to the State.
The Congress’ campaign against the Modi government over the alleged discrimination in release of funds to Karnataka came up for discussion at the core committee meeting, which discussed strategies for the coming Lok Sabha polls.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, party State unit president B.Y. Vijayendra said the BJP, in the coming days, would expose the Congress government’s “malicious” campaign against the Centre by providing comprehensive information on the funds released during Mr. Modi’s regime.
Former national general secretary of BJP, C.T. Ravi said the party would release all data on release of Central funds to Railways, construction of roads and for other welfare programmes of the State during Mr. Modi’s tenure.
Seeking to counter the Congress campaign on the issue, Mr. Ravi claimed that Karnataka had received a total of ₹1.42 lakh crore from the Centre in the form of tax devolution and grant-in-aid during the 10 years of the Manmohan Singh government. However, during Mr. Modi’s rule, it received a total of ₹4.91 lakh crore, which is about ₹3.49 lakh crore more.
Yet, the Congress government in the State was making an effort to create a misunderstanding among the people over the issue, he lamented.
“The State’s treasury may be empty. So, they have come up with such a campaign to cover up their failures,” Mr. Ravi alleged while accusing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of designing such a “toolkit” to stir up “regional chauvinism” to counter “nationalistic feelings”.
Mr. Vijayendra claimed that all development works in the State had come to a standstill and the Congress government was pointing a finger towards the BJP government at the Centre to “hide its failures”.
The meeting focussed on the strategies needed for the BJP and its NDA partner --- JD (S) --- to win all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in the State. While the BJP and its allies presently hold 27 out of the 28 seats in the State, the party needed to focus on adding only one seat to the tally for a clean sweep of the State, Mr. Ravi said.
The issue of seat-sharing between BJP and JD (S), however, did not figure in the meeting. Mr. Ravi clarified that the issues relating to it would come up for discussion only during a meeting of the BJP with its NDA partners.
The core committee meeting was also attended BJP’s Karnataka’s election in-charge Radhamohan Das Agarwal, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R. Ashok, former Chief Ministers Basavaraj Bommai and D.V. Sadananda Gowda, besides former Deputy Chief Minister K.S. Eshwarappa and former Minister B. Sriramulu.
The core committee meeting was followed by a meeting of Mysuru cluster, comprising leaders from five districts of Mysuru, Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Mandya, and Hassan.
