Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah on Tuesday questioned the efficiency of intelligence agencies following their failure in connection with the incident of an explosive being found near the ticket counter of Mangaluru International Airport on Monday.
The former Chief Minister, who participated in Sri Urugamma Devi and Sri Masanamma Devi temples’ inauguration at Cheeranahalli in Mandya district, spoke to presspersons for a while here and said the incident has sent shock waves through the community and those responsible for it should be stringently punished.
Emphasising on the need for a thorough investigation, the veteran Congress leader said, “Mangaluru is witnessing such incidents one after the other and what are intelligence agencies doing about this?” The State government has completely failed to curb such incidents. It should have been on alert immediately after the recent killing of two persons in police firing during the anti-CAA protests in Mangaluru. But, it has failed, he said.
Reacting to the State Cabinet reshuffle, Mr. Siddaramaiah said: “There is no active government in Karnataka. For the past six months, there are no ministers for 18 portfolios. How can [Chief Minister B.S.] Yediyurappa manage all the departments?”
According to him, the State government was a ‘dead government’ and some ministers were given additional portfolios but they were not discharging their duties.
“The BJP had promised to include the disqualified MLAs within 24 hours after their victory. Mr. Yediyurappa has no power to expand the cabinet as Union Home Minister Amit Shah has not given permission for this.
Regarding the for-and-against discussions on appointing four ‘working presidents’ to the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, Mr. Siddaramaiah asked if there was no working president when former Minister R.V. Deshpande was the State Congress chief.
“It is being rumoured that I am putting pressure on the requirement of four working presidents. This is a media creation. During Mr. Deshpande’s regime, [former Minister] D. K. Shivakumar was the working president. If [former Deputy Chief Minister] G. Parameshwara has said that there is no need for a working president, it is his opinion.”
Former Ministers N. Cheluvarayaswamy and P.M. Narendraswamy, former MLAs K.B. Chandrashekar and A.B. Ramesh Bandisidde Gowda and others were present.
