Bengaluru: The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) on Monday termed the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) charge sheets released on Sunday as bundles of lies.
“The BJP’s charge sheets are politically motivated with an eye on the forthcoming Assembly elections. The allegations are baseless,’’ Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy told media persons at KPCC office here.
He said the BJP leaders have been busy in making false allegations on farmers’ suicides in the state.
“BJP ruled states Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are in the first and second places with 8,000 and 4,000 farmers’ suicides in four years while Karnataka is in the third place with 2,667 farmers ending lives due to debts,’’ the minister said.
He said Karnataka has been reeling under severe drought since 2011 for four successive years. “Over 12,000 farmers committed suicides in the country since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister. The Central Government has submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court on May 3, 2017 on this issue. It is quite shocking and disappointing trend,’’ he said.
The minister said the Congress government has hiked the compensation for the kith and kin of those farmers committed suicides from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh beside waiving the loan up to Rs 1 lakh availed by the deceased farmers.
“Let BJP national president Amit Shah explain about the welfare measures taken for the benefit of debt-ridden farmers in the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is for industrialists and certainly not for farmers,’’ he said.
Coming down heavily on BJP national president for making false allegations against Congress government and shedding crocodile tears for the deceased farmers’ families, the minister said that Shah should visit BJP-ruled states to prevent farmers committing suicides. “It is a known fact that BJP is for industrialists,’’ he said.
Blaming BJP leaders for not pressurizing the Central Government to waive farmers’ loans, he said that BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa and others were quiet when all-party delegation led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah met Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking waiver of farmers’ loans. “Now, BJP national president, accompanied by state BJP leaders, has launched Mushti Dhaanya (fistful food grain campaign) to collect food grain from the farmers in the state. Let Yeddyurappa explain to the farmers about what Modi government has done for them,’’ he said.
He has also said that people of Karnataka have not forgotten Yeddyurappa’s statement – I have no printing machine to print currency notes – when Congress MLCs asked him to waive off agricultural loans when he was the Deputy Chief Minister.
