The Legislative Assembly on Wednesday witnessed a war of words between the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress members, with Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah leading the charge, over the allegations of reduction in Karnataka’s Central share of tax revenue.
The issue came up during the CM’s reply to the debate on the State Budget when the Opposition Congress alleged that the actual allocation of Central share of taxes to Karnataka had reduced in the last few years.
Congress MLA Krishna Byre Gowda argued that the Central share of taxes being given to Karnataka was not in proportion with the size of the Union Budget. Pointing out that Karnataka had earlier got Central share of taxes in the range of 1.45% to 1.47% of the Union Budget size, he said the allocation in the last two years had reduced nearly to half of the above percentage.
Endorsing his views, another Congress MLA Dinesh Gundu Rao said that a large number or economists had already expressed a view that raw deal had been meted out to Karnataka by the Centre.
Taking exception to this, Mr. Bommai accused the Congress members of trying to mislead the House. He argued that it was not proper to take the Union Budget size as a bench mark for demanding the State’s Central share of taxes as the Union Budget had borrowings to support post-COVID-19 recovery of economy. Also, the Centre had made allocations to the State in the sectors of national highway, railways and ports, he argued.
Responding to this, Deputy Leader of the Opposition U.T. Khader said that the BJP leaders were scared to even acknowledge that Karnataka had got a raw deal from the Centre. This angered Mr. Bommai who shot back, “You still salute your Central leaders even after the recent elections to five State assemblies showed that they are rejected by people. We need not learn anything from you.”
This triggered a heated exchange of words between the ruling BJP and the Opposition Congress members. The Congress members finally staged a walkout.
