BENGALURU: The Congress party will be completely obliterated in Karnataka, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has proclaimed.
Addressing the Jan Sankalp Yatra in Kunigal on Wednesday, Bommai said the Congress had ruled Karnataka for the maximum period and yet, their governments did nothing other than fool the people of the state. “To attain power, the Congress leaders misled the people continuously. However, after the BJP emerged as an alternative force, Congress lost its place and position all over the country”, Bommai said.
“Their game of seeking votes on the basis of caste, dividing people on religious lines, creating sub-castes and making tall claims as champions of Dalits, Backward Classes and Minorities, have been exposed. The Congress leaders talk of uplift of the poor and downtrodden only in their speeches and create an impression as if they are their only protector. And yet, the people from the Backward classes have remained backward. Now, all those communities have been awakened. They now question what has been done for them by the Congress governments over the years”, the CM remarked.
Bommai said, “Seeing the amount spent on their upliftment, the life of those communities should have been vastly improved. But in fact, they have not been able to progress either financially, socially, or academically.”
Referring to the borrowing of Rs 2 lakh crore by Karnataka, the CM said, “The state was limping under Siddaramaiah despite the fact that there was no Covid-19 pandemic when the Congress leader was the chief minister. The financial position was in a terrible state. And yet, the Siddaramaiah government imposed a loan of Rs 2 lakh crore on the people of Karnataka. With so much borrowing, the state should have been developed.”
“The BJP, in its rule, has spent Rs 32,000 crore to irrigate 7 lakh hectares of land. In contrast, the Congress government had irrigated just 2 lakh acres by spending Rs 54,000 crore during its five-year term,” Bommai said, questioning, “Where did that money go…to whose coffers…?”
Terming the Congress as the “Gangotri of corruption” (Gangotri here meaning source), the CM said that the Lokayukta institution was shut down to start the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) as over 50 cases were pending against the then chief minister and his cabinet colleagues. The ACB filed ‘B’ reports in all the cases despite having evidence in many cases, Bommai said.
The shutting down of Lokayukta is the best example of corruption in the Congress. The party’s ministers looted many government departments for five years and they did not spare even the rice distributed to the poor under the Anna Bhagya Scheme, the CM added.
Speaking about a pro-BJP wave, Bommai said, “All over Tumkur district there is a pro-BJP wave. Also, the response of people has been tremendous in Hyderabad-Karnataka, Central Karnataka and Mumbai-Karnataka region. The welfare programmes of the state and the Union governments are getting people to support the BJP”.
In the 2018 Assembly polls, BJP had lost in Kunigal, Tumkur Rural, Koratagere and Madhugiri by small margins and in the next election, the saffron party will sweep all the seats, Bommai declared.
Ministers Govind Karjol, Araga Jnanendra, J C Madhuswamy, K Gopalaiah, B C Nagesh, MLAs Jyothi Ganesh, Rajesh Gowda, Masale Jairam, MLCs C P Yogeshwar, N Ravikumar, Y A Narayanaswamy, K S Naveen, former MP Mudda Hanumegowda, former MLC Ashwath Narayana were also present in the Jan Sankalp Yatra. (ANI)