From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore
Bangalore, Jan 6: In a frontal attack against the Siddaramaiah-led Congress regime in Karnataka, the State BJP said the induction of two ''tainted” persons – D K Shivakumar and Roshan Baig – into a ''directionless” State Cabinet defied logic and contended that the Chief Minister should have concentrated on improving governance.
''What is the point in expanding the Siddaramaiah Cabinet at this point by inducting two tainted persons?,” asked BJP opposition leader in the State Legislative Council and former chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda.
Gowda said the chief minister and other Congress leaders should explain to the people as how Shivakumar and Baig would help in improving the governance or toning up the administration.
The BJP leader said Siddaramaiah has totally failed to live up to the expectations of the people and whatever goodwill the government had earned by dropping Santosh Lad following his alleged involvement the mining scam had evaporated.
The Congress government has not been able to take clear stance on burining issues such as admission of students to professional courses and controversy with regard to proposal to ban arecanut, which were critical to the students and the people, especially the arecanut farmers of coastal and malnad districts, Gowda said.
The State Government has been ''totally directionless” and was unable to take any clear policies on power, drought and the finance, he alleged.
Instead of providing a clean and transparent administration, the Ministers were continued to found busy in renovation of their chambers and demolition of walls for larger offices in the Secretariat.
''Neither Chief Minister Siddaramaiah nor his cabinet ministers were bothered to implement measures to tackle drought,” the BJP leader alleged.
Even though the size of the State annual budget crossed more than Rs 1 lakh crore, the Government has not been able to pay salaries to teachers of both aided and un-aided educational institutions.
The people would teach a fitting lesson to the Congress government in the coming Lok Sabha elections, he contended.
Despite good storage levels in the state reservoirs, the State Government has resorted to power cuts.
Power cuts have been more frequent and more than six-seven hours in villages. There was no plan to tackle shortage of power in the state. The economic growth would decline if the government failed to arrest the power shortage in the days ahead, Gowda said.
There was no clarity on the issue of proposal to ban arecanut cultivation in the State by the Centre.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has written a letter to the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, to examine the scientific evidences on the harmful effects of arecanut.
Though several institutes in Tamil Nadu and Kerala studied health benefits of arecanut, the BJP leader said the Centre was mulling to ban the cultivation of the crop.
More than five lakh families were dependent on arecanut for their livelihood, he said and the failure of the State and Central governments would affect them badly, he said.