Village stay: I go by doctor\'s advice not BJP’s, says HD Kumaraswamy

Bengaluru: Taking a jibe at the BJP which has been critical of his proposed ‘Grama Vastavya’ (village stay) programme, CM H.D. Kumaraswamy said he will go by the advice of his doctors (he has undergone cardiac surgery) and not of the opposition while embarking on the programme in Yadgir on Friday.

Talking to reporters after releasing a booklet highlighting the achievements of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government in the last one year, the CM said the BJP had been making efforts to topple his government but has not succeeded. The entire nation watched when he launched his Grama Vastavya programme to understand the problems in backward villages in 2006. It also ensured development to a certain extent and improved basic facilities. Unable to digest the popularity of the programme, the BJP was trying to find fault with everything. “I have stayed in a five star hotel and a hut too. I know the problems of the poor,” he said.

Ridiculing the drought study by BJP leaders in North-Karnataka region, Mr Kumaraswamy said the leaders went on the study tour without informing him or the chief secretary. Nobody knows what they did by visiting drought-affected villages, the CM quipped.

He also brought up Operation Kamala launched by the BJP to poach on ruling coalition legislators and claimed that recently, the party offered Rs 10 crore to a JD(S) MLA to switch sides. Instead of discharging its duty as a responsible opposition party, the BJP is only interested in pulling down his government with the help of disgruntled legislators. “I am optimistic that the BJP's ambition of coming back to power will not be fulfilled. Our government will complete its tenure of five years.”

On his village outreach program, the CM said he had asked all his ministers and MLAs to go and stay in a village at least once in a month to provide solutions on the spot. It would be better for ministers to go to villages instead of making people travel to the district headquarters or state capital for the redressal of their grievances. ‘Grama Vastavya’ would be a regular feature henceforth and he would like to do it more frequently to address problems of villagers, Mr Kumaraswamy said. He claimed that the government had almost cleared the crop loans of farmers borrowed from co-op and nationalised banks.