Building up tempo for the BJP’s poll battle for Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka, Union Home Minister Amit Shah accused the Chief Minister and Deputy CM of neglecting the interests of the State due to their power tussle, and trying to politicise the issue of drought assistance from the Centre.
“In Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is busy trying to save his chair while Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar is busy trying to snatch the chair from the CM. The tussle is being witnessed on a daily basis. The Congress government is neither bothered about development of the State nor protecting the interests of people,” Mr. Shah alleged while addressing a convention of representatives from BJP’s Shakti Kendras (cluster of booths) from the Lok Sabha constituencies of Bengaluru North, South, Central, Rural and Chikkaballapura, at Bengaluru Palace Grounds on April 2.
Expressing concern over the State being gripped by drought, Mr. Shah accused the Congress government of delaying the process of sending the memorandum to the Centre for drought assistance by three months. In an obvious reference to the fact that the model code of conduct has kicked in due to polls, he said the issue related to drought assistance is now before the Election Commission. But the Congress government is politicising the drought assistance issue, he alleged.
The Union Home Minister gave his version with respect to the Congress government’s charge that the Centre had discriminated in devolution of taxes and funds to Karnataka. “Karnataka had received only ₹1,42,000 crore during the 10-year rule of UPA government led by Manmohan Singh. But in the last 10 years, we have given ₹4,91,000 crore to Karnataka, which is three-fold more than that given by the UPA government. In addition, ₹25,000 crore has been given for development of national highways, ₹12,000 crore for development of airports,” he said.
Claiming credit for development of Bengaluru, he said, “If there is anyone who took up the development of Bengaluru city, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”
In all, Karnataka accounted for 3.5 crore beneficiaries of various Central schemes, he claimed.
Accusing the previous UPA regime (2004-14) at the Centre of large-scale corruption to the tune of ₹12 lakh crore, he said, in Karnataka, corruption meant nothing to Deputy Chief Minister and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D. K. Shivakumar.
Asserting that the BJP would make a clean sweep of all the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, Mr. Shah declared that the BJP-JD(S) combine will not allow the ruling Congress to open its account in Karnataka in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Expressing gratitude to the people of Karnataka for electing 17 BJP MPs with 43% vote share in 2014, and 25 MPs with 51% vote share in 2019, he appealed to them to ensure that the party wins all the 28 Lok Sabha seats with a vote share of 60% this time.
