CM Siddaramaiah blames Centre for price rise
Belagavi (Karnataka), Apr 12 (PTI): Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday lashed out at the BJP-led government in the Centre for the price rise in the country.
Siddaramaiah ridiculed the Karnataka BJP unit's ongoing 'Janaakrosha Yatre', the public anger march.
The 16-day agitation where the BJP will take out march in all the districts against the anti-people and the alleged minority appeasement politics of the Congress government is aimed at awakening people.
Speaking to reporters at Sambra Airport in Belagavi, Siddaramaiah charged that the BJP leaders have no sense of dignity or decorum.
"Who is responsible for the hike in petrol, diesel, and LPG cylinder prices? What answers do BJP leaders have for this price hike? The Narendra Modi government is directly responsible for the price hike," the chief minister said.
He said the decision taken by his government had increased the state revenue by around Rs 7,000 crore to Rs 8,000 crore in the form of additional tax.
Siddaramaiah also said that the hike in milk prices did not bring money to the government treasury as it goes directly to the farmers. "If BJP protests on giving money to farmers, then they are anti-farmers," he said.
The CM said the Centre increased the LPG cylinder price by Rs 50, which was a burden on the common citizens.
He challenged the BJP leaders to speak up against the central government's price hike.
"BJP has no moral right to protest. All these price hikes happened due to the BJP. Check the price of an LPG cylinder now and what it was during Manmohan Singh's time. It has doubled," Siddaramaiah alleged.
On BJP's allegation that the Karnataka government is financially bankrupt, he sought to know whether salaries, pensions and retirement benefits have been stopped.
"During BJP's time, even after claiming there was no money, they issued tenders and misused funds. Now they are trying to lecture us," the chief minister said.
According to him, if Karnataka is financially bankrupt today, the previous BJP government is directly responsible for it.
He blamed the BJP governments led by former Chief Ministers Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar and Basavaraj Bommai for the financial woes.
Siddaramaiah said, "We have presented a budget of Rs 4,09,500 crore this year. Last year, we presented a budget of Rs 3.71 lakh crore. This is an increase of Rs 38,000 crore. If the state is bankrupt, could we have increased the budget like this."
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Sonia Gandhi, Rahul eyed Rs 2000 cr properties without investing a penny: BJP
New Delhi (PTI): The BJP on Friday dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to seek a quick and time-bound disposal of cases, as it slammed the party for citing politics as the reason for the ED's action against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case.
The ruling BJP kept the heat on the opposition party following the ED's chargesheet against the Gandhis and accused chief ministers from the Congress-ruled states of ploughing public money as advertisement into the weekly newspaper which few read.
Former Union minister Anurag Thakur alleged that the Congress used the newspaper as its ATM, claiming that Gandhis sought to acquire properties worth Rs 2,000 crores of the National Herald without investing a penny from their pocket.
Both Gandhis together owned 76 per cent of the Young Indian company which was, he said, given Rs 50 lakh loan by the Congress.
The company then took over the Associated Journals Limited, which owns the newspaper affiliated to the Congress, in lieu of Rs 90 crore it owed to the opposition party, he said.
Thakur asked if a political party can give a loan.
To a question about the allegation that the ED action was politically motivated, the BJP leader dared Congress leaders facing corruption charges to move courts to seek quick and time-bound trial in the cases against them.
"If they have guts, they should do it," he said, adding that in the "Congress model of corruption" the thieves make a lot of noises.
The National Herald case, he said, has stunned the Congress ecosystem into silence.
Thakur noted Gandhis have moved courts for quashing action against them for many times since a lower court took cognizance of the matter before the Modi government came to power.
The courts gave them no relief except that they are on bail, he said, adding that the judiciary did not intervene in the Enforcement Directorate's probe.
Turning to his home state Himachal Pradesh where the Congress is in power, Thakur accused the party of not fulfilling any of its 10 main promises but spending crores of rupees in advertisement in the National Herald.
"Does any Congress leader or member read it in Himachal," he asked, demanding that people should be given details of money spent by different Congress governments in advertisements in the newspaper, which is available digitally.
The Congress has been organising protests in different parts of the country against the ED action.
