Bengaluru: If new-age politics is all about winning over social media, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah definitely seems to be scoring over his rivals with timely tweets to rebut the allegations hurled at him.
A day after BJP national president, Amit Shah wondered what he (Siddaramaiah) had done with Central funds to the tune of Rs 2,19,506 crore allocated to Karnataka, Siddaramaiah took to Twitter to issue a point-by-point rebuttal to the BJP chief.
Terming Mr Shah’s statement a lie, the CM said the Central funds were not a special grant to the state. “All states receive it. Funds so received go into our state Budget. I have presented five Budgets with a total outlay of about Rs 9,00,000 crore. This outlay is funded with Finance Commission grants, our own tax revenue and borrowings,” he explained.
Training his guns on Mr Shah, the CM said, "You ask where the money has gone? The answer is it has gone into irrigation, schools, hospitals, roads and highways, railway lines, crop insurance, farm loan waiver and so on. An account for every rupee is presented before the legislature.”
Ridiculing the opposition BJP, he wondered why the party had been 'asleep' for five years since he assumed power and was posing questions now? "Did they sleep through 15 Legislature sessions when the accounts were presented, debated and approved? Please stop fooling people. Repeating a lie does not make it the truth," he lashed out and added that by asking silly questions, the BJP president was only insulting his own party leaders in the two Houses, Jagadish Shettar and K.S. Eshwarappa.
The CM asserted that the devolution of central funds to states is the constitutional duty of the Centre and the funds are a right of all states. "The Finance Commission decides the formula for fund sharing and states get the funds. It is not a gift of the Congress led UPA or BJP led NDA government. This has been the practice since 1950," he added.
