Latest news with #OperationKamala
Hans India
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Despite rumbles, Congress govt seems irreplaceable in Karnataka
Karnataka may have been devastated by the torrential rains, sweeping across south-west India, heralding an early monsoon season this year. Bengaluru, already over stretched as far as its inadequate civic amenities and traffic problems are concerned, had a torrid time all through last week. Quite naturally, it was the hapless public who endured the terrible times and an endless stream of assurances from the government, which seemed convinced that they were actually doing their jobs much better than ever. Completing two years of its tenure, the Congress government last week decided to celebrate it on a grand note. With the Delhi bosses and the party spearhead Rahul Gandhi in attendance, the Siddaramaiah-led cabinet listed out its series of achievements, which were mostly about the five guarantees that they started implementing over this period. The sixth guarantee, handing of ownership rights to the people of the State was initiated by Rahul who said that 'whoever owns land in Karnataka must have ownership rights'. It surely does not mean that the remaining three years are going to be smooth sailing for the present government. Dissidence and groupism, as old as the hills, continue to plague the administration as the restive Deputy Chief Minister, D K Shivakumar has moved enough to rename the neighbouring districts of Bengaluru as Bengaluru South, which includes his constituency. If this is being panned as 'land mafia' friendly by the BJP, which despite maintaining a high pressure and street-level activism against the doings of the government, is still far from being considered as a cohesive unit capable of taking on the ruling party. The saffron party's machinery at the state level is forced to grapple with disgruntled old-timers and the defectors, who joined it after its 'Operation Kamala' a few years ago. With Siddaramaiah managing to hold on to the CM post despite regular attacks from within his party, the local BJP leaders have not yet been the beneficiaries of splits and break-away factions from the GOP, which had enabled them to form governments earlier. A survey result commemorating the two-year celebrations had a lot of positives for the BJP. The key findings were that if elections were held today, the Vijayendra-led party would bag close to 150+ seats with the Congress likely to be getting a much lesser number. In fact, it would be a role reversal, only that the BJP would get at least 20 more seats than the existing government. The surprise, if one can term it thus, is that people seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of the incumbent Chief Minister. Siddaramaiah clearly out-beats every other likely contender, bagging a 29.2 per cent support. In comparison, Shivakumar is reportedly favoured by just 10.2 per cent of the respondents. Worse is the case of BJP state party chief B Y Vijayendra, who is preferred by just 5.2 per cent. Riding on a heady combination of 'Ahinda', a Kannada acronym for minorities and backward castes, Siddaramaiah may have actually sent the message to everyone concerned that he is still the popular choice. One is not sure whether the favourable outcome of the survey is helping the BJP's cause or has it ended up showing the mirror to the Hindutva proponents, who have the momentum in their favour but lack a CM face to counter the Congress.
Hans India
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Have fulfilled 142 of the promises made in two years, declares CM
Hosapete: We have fulfilled 142 of the promises made during the elections, along with five guarantees, in two years. We will fulfil the rest of the promises in the next three years, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah assured. Speaking at the 'Samarpane Sankalpa' conference organized by the Revenue Department to mark the completion of two years of the government, distributing land titles to 111,111 people and unveiling a statue of the Iron Lady Indira Gandhi. CM Siddaramaiah said that out of the 165 promises we made as the Chief Minister for the first time, we have fulfilled 158 promises and have formulated and implemented 30 new programmes that were not announced in the manifesto. He questioned why the BJP is lying to the people and not fulfilling the promises it had made. 'Our state is a garden of peace for all races. A state that respects everyone equally. All religions should be treated equally under the Constitution. We are following this value', he said. 'We are losing money every year from the central government. If we give 4.5 lakh crores in taxes every year, we get back only 14 paise for every rupee. This is tarnishing the dignity of the federal system', he said. 'Even centrally sponsored projects have not received full funding from the Centre. The state government has given the full state share to the central projects. But the central government is doing injustice by not giving its share. You all know the injustice done to the state in the 15th financial plan. Not a single penny of the Rs 5300 crores announced for the Bhadra Upper River Project was released. They promised to declare the Bhadra Upper River Project as a national project. This too was not fulfilled.' Now JDS and BJP have come together. But BJP has never come to power on its own. Except for coming to power after Operation Kamala, BJP has never been elected by the people in the state till date, he said. BJP's commission corruption has been proven: CM The previous BJP government was accused of 40% commission. We fought against this, after coming to power, we formed the Nagamohan Das Committee to investigate. He said that the report given by the committee proved the commission business. We are giving Rs 2000 to the heads of 1.22 crore families under the Grihalakshmi scheme. We have provided facilities to 1.30 crore families under the Gruha Jyoti scheme. We have also made arrangements for free travel for women of the entire state under the Shakti scheme, he said. What is the price of gold now? The price of gold, which was Rs 10,000 in 2014, is now Rs 1 lakh. The price of gas, which was Rs 400, is now Rs 850. There is public anger against the Modi government at the Centre, which has raised the prices of diesel, petrol, oil, pulses, pulses and fertilizers to the sky, but there is public opinion in favour of our government, he said. Therefore, the programme organised by the BJP is fake, he said. The people of the state are our owners. We have acted as we promised to our owners. As long as we have your blessings, there is no question of us being afraid of the BJP's bundle of lies.
The Hindu
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
We have fulfilled 142 promises in two years, remaining will be met in next three years: Siddaramaiah
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah declared that 242 of the total 593 promises made during the 2023 Assembly elections had already been met in the last two years and the remaining will be implemented over the next three years. Speaking at the Samarpana Sankalpa Samavesha, a public gathering organised at Hosapete in Vijayanagara district on Tuesday to celebrate the completion of the Congress government's two-year in office, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that in his previous term between 2013 and 2018 also he had fulfilled 158 of the 165 promises, apart from 30 additional programmes that were not announced in the party's manifesto. 'But the BJP never fulfilled its promises. It had given 600 promises but could not fulfill even 10% of them,' he said. 'Injustice to Karnataka' The Chief Minister strongly criticised the Union government for what he called 'systematic financial injustice' towards Karnataka by stating that it had not paid ₹13,000 crore dues payable to the State in the last two financial years. 'Though the State contributes ₹4.5 lakh crore in taxes every year, it receives only ₹65,000 crore in return. It means only ₹14 per every ₹100. Prime Minister Narendra Modi often talks of cooperative federalism. Is it cooperative federalism? This erodes the federal structure,' he said. Pointing to the Union government's failure to provide its share for centrally-sponsored schemes to be implemented in the State, the Chief Minister added that Karnataka has been fulfilling its share of funding, but the Centre has failed to release its corresponding share. 'There were centrally-sponsored schemes worth ₹48,000 crore to be implemented in the State. The Karnataka government gave its share of ₹24,000 crore, but the Union government gave only ₹18,000 crore, ₹4,000 crore less than what it was supposed to give. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced ₹5,300 crore for the Upper Bhadra Project. The then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai mentioned it in his Budget and declared that the project would be made a national project. Not a single rupee came from the Union government,' he said. Slamming the BJP-JD(S) alliance, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the BJP had never formed a government in Karnataka on its own but came to power through the backdoor through 'Operation Kamala'.
