Hubballi: With assembly elections due in the state next year, the ruling Congress and BJP are vying for both the Lingayat and popular vote in North Karnataka.
Close on the heels of the state government holding a mammoth event to rename the Karnataka State Women's University after Akka Mahadevi, a 12th century poet associated with the Veerashaiva Bhakt movement, BJP leaders are on Saturday launching the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana in Hubballi to provide free cooking LPG connections to below poverty line families.
Not only did the Congress government spend over Rs 3 crore on the university event, it also hired as many as 1,200 KSRTC buses to ferry around 50,000 women to it from the Lingayat heartland. It's expensive attempt to woo the Lingayats of North Karnataka has earned it some brickbats as it is believed it is only trying to counter the release of 20 volumes of vachanas by the poet and social reformer by PM Narendra Modi recently.
Not to be outdone, the BJP is launching the Ujjwala scheme at what promises to be a mammoth event, although a large number of beneficiaries in the state don't seem to be aware of the procedures involved to apply for it. In fact less than seven per cent of the 37 lakh beneficiaries in the state have submitted KYC (Know Your Customer) details to the oil companies. Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Ananth Kumar, D V Sadananda Gowda, Ramesh Jigajinagi, and Nirmala Sitaraman and hordes of other BJP leaders including party chief, B S Yediyurappa are expected to attend the programme.
Besides holding events to woo voters, the two parties are also busy claiming credit for populist schemes. While CM Siddaramaiah has been making a great deal of the Anna Bhagya scheme, the BJP claims it is the Centre that is supplying the state the foodgrains it needs for it.
