BENGALURU: With his sight set on next year's elections to the Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah reportedly assured ruling party legislators here on Wednesday that he would take steps to increase the quantum of food grains provided to beneficiaries of Anna Bhagya scheme while increasing supply of milk to school children from three days to five days a week.
Mr Siddaramaiah, who made the announcement at a meeting of the Congress legislature party (CLP), also disclosed his plans to increase the quantum of rice from 5 kg a person to 8 kg for each BPL card besides reintroducing supply of kerosene for all BPL card holders with LPG connections.
A senior leader told the media after the CLP: "The next budget in March-April will be Mr Siddaramaiah's 12th budget as finance minister and 5th as Chief Minister, so, he wants to leave his imprint on the minds of the people. He is planning to dole out as many populist programmes instead of keeping economic position in mind. Apart from this, he will be the first Chief Minister who started off with budget outlay of more than Rs 1.35 lakh crore in 2013, and will cross the barrier of Rs 2 lakh crore budget this year. Therefore, he is planning many more populist schemes."
The leader added that the main intention of presenting such a budget loaded with populist schemes was to mock at Prime Minister Narendra Modi who did not do much for the poor despite demonetisation policy. "It looks like Mr Siddaramaiah wants to drive home a point that Anna Bhagya scheme has come to the rescue of the poor at a time when Mr Modi's demonetisation rendered them jobless," the leader added.
Meanwhile, some legislators expressed their ire at social welfare minister H. Anjaneya and few other ministers for failing to tackle the drought. "Almost 150 taluks are declared as drought hit, but some of our district in-charge ministers have not even toured the district twice during the last three months. If the same situation continues, then we (ruling party MLAs) will have a tough time convincing the electorate in the days ahead. As far as Mr Anjaneya is concerned, he has not released funds to sink bore-wells under Ganga Kalyana scheme," the leader quoted MLAs as telling the Chief Minister but declined to disclose their names.
Action sought against poojary, Jaffer
Some Congress legislators, led by chief whip in the Legislative Council, Mr Ivan D’souza and Madhugiri MLA K. N. Rajanna, criticized senior leaders — C. K. Jaffer Sharief, A. H. Vishwanath and B. Janardhan Poojary — who have been issuing statements against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior leader quoted the MLAs as saying that “senior leaders have been making baseless and meaningless statements against you (Mr Siddaramaiah). So, you should take steps to convince party central leaders to initiate action against these leaders. Had Mr Sharief not insisted on fielding his grandson, Abdul Rahman Sharief, the party would have own the seat. But now, he is making baseless allegations, so he needs to be taught a lesson.”
