Daijiworld Media Network – Udupi (NR)
 
Udupi, Jan 21: With once again the same allegations levelled against the JD(S)-BJP combine, the Congress party's 'Janandolan' juggernaut seems to have entered city as well, with a big bang. 
 
Addressing a huge gathering here on Sunday January 20, state Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge charged the two parties, namely, the JD(S) and the BJP of being pre-occupied with looting the government treasury and not being in the least bit interested in the welfare of the common man or solving his problems.
 
Further Kharge doubting the administrative ability of B S Yedyurappa criticised him saying that he did not have any knowledge about the state's finances. "Yedyurappa is randomly flouting a number of schemes without having adequate resources at his command," he charged.
 
Openly criticising the opposition for corruption amongst its ranks, Kharge said that while Yedyurappa minted money through commission received from the 'free bicycle scheme' for school children, Deve Gowda's sons Kumaraswamy and Revanna siphoned off money from contractors through mines. Lauding his party, he said the Congress was the only party which had made rich contribution to the poor people's welfare in the past, by giving lands to the tillers through the Land Reforms Act and through various other welfare schemes.
 
Also on the occasion the other two speakers, Rajya Sabha member Janardhan Poojary and M Veerappa Moily strongly hit out at the opposition parties and warned the BJP leaders against instigating youth and students to take up the path of violence in the name of religion. In this context Poojary opined that during communal conflagration it is always the lower castes and backward Hindu youth who fall into the trap of fundamentalist propaganda of the BJP and ultimately they end up as victims in criminal court cases, he added.
 
In his speech Poojary also lambasted Champa the president of Sahitya Parishath for being critical and implying that  Congress leaders like Oscar Fernandes and Moily and others were not contributing or promoting Kannada language and culture. H said he was upset at the treatment accorded to Oscar and Moily at the recently concluded Kannada meet here.
 
Poojary asked Kharge to announce that if the Congress party won the elections here, it would provide rice to the poor at the rate of Rs. 2 as it was being done in neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The other speakers on the occasion were M V Rajshekaran, union minister Oscar Fernandes, D K Shivakumar, Roshan Baig, Ramanath Rai, Vasanth Salian, R V Deshpande, former MP Vinaykumar Sorake, former MLA U R Sabapathy and others.