From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Mar 25: In a sharp retort to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for her ‘unfounded criticism’ that the Congress government for asking the Centre for funds to meet the expenditure on its five flagship guarantees, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has shot back by asserting that the State ‘is not begging money to fund the guarantees but asking what the 14th and 15th Finance Commissions had recommended’.
“One expects the country’s Finance Minister to speak the truth. Unfortunately, she has been consistently denying the written word,’’ Siddaramaiah said asking Nirmala Sitharaman to read what the 14th FC had recommended and the recommendation of the 15th FC in its interim report.
“The interim report of the 15 FC for 2020-21 sanctioned Rs 6,764 crore for three states - Karnataka (Rs 5495 crore), Telangana (Rs 723 crore) and Mizoram (Rs 546 crore). These grants were recommended not because of any special love for these states. These were recommended to ensure that no State receives lower share in devolution in absolute numbers than the previous year,’’ he said.
The ‘high and mighty attitude’ of Nirmala Sitharaman, who unfortunately is a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka, is highly condemnable and ‘an insult to 6.5 crore Kannadigas’.
The Chief Minister pointed out that, ‘in the final report also, the 15FC recommended Rs 6,000 crore for Karnataka, Rs 3000 crore for revival of water bodies and Rs 3000 crore for the Peripheral Ring Road for Bengaluru’.
He alleged that that the Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Nirmala Sitharaman refused to accept these two recommendations thus denying the rightful share for Karnataka.
“Smt @nsitharaman avare, we are not asking for funds to our 5 Guarantees. We have adequate provision for those in our budget, thank you,’’ he said in a message marked to the Finance Minister in ‘X’.
The Chief Minister said: “Since you don’t seem to have any faith in or commitment to the federal polity enshrined in our Constitution, you don’t seem to understand the concept of rightful share of the states. Kannadigas demand their share. They are not begging.’’
The Chief Minister said the State Government’s writ petition under Article 32 in the Supreme Court is to seek a direction to the Centre to release funds to Karnataka under the National Disaster Management Act, which the government is bound to decide within a month of the Inter-Ministerial Committee submitting its report to the Union Government, that was done in October last year. The Congress government approached the Supreme Court as the Narendra Modi regime has ignored the pleas since the last five months despite knowing that 226 out of the 236 taluks in the State have been declared as drought affected.
The Finance Minister must ascertain facts before speaking, he said.
“It is regrettable that the Union Finance Minister is so ignorant of the duties and rights of the States vis-à-vis the Union Government in a federal structure,’’ Siddaramaiah added.