From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Mar 10: Lashing out at the state BJP leaders for their political comments and media statements criticizing the Congress government, deputy Chief minister D K Shivakumar has challenged the BJP leaders to get Drought Relief amounts released to Karnataka if they had any self-respect.

Speaking to media persons near his residence on Sunday, March 10, he attacked the state BJP leaders for simply posturing before the media and issuing baseless allegations and said the BJP leaders should prove that they care for Karnataka and its people as Narendra Modi government is yet to release drought relief funds to the state even though the Central study team has come and assessed the situation in July last year.

The state government has asked the Modi government to release Rs 18000 crore as drought relief, which is in accordance with the Central norms. "We are not asking for charity but demanding what the State should get in drought situations," he said.

Shivakumar also attacked the Modi regime for not bothering to respond to the demand for increasing the total number of man-days from 100 to 150 under the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. Why Modi and BJP is silent on the suffering of the people, he asked.

He said the people will not tolerate or accept the empty slogans of the BJP. The protests and agitations by BJP are bogus and will be useless, he said.

Govt sympathetic to teachers

Later, he participated in the teachers' convention at Kengeri in Bengaluru along with chief minister Siddaramaiah to mark the election of Puttanna as Congress MLC.

He said the government was sympathetic to the demands of the teachers for reintroducing the old pension scheme instead of the new scheme and also for filling up the vacancies in the posts of teachers.

Ministers N Cheluvarayaswamy, B Ramalinga Reddy and MLC Puttanna were present.