Defending Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Siddaramaiah over his remarks on Dalit leaders who had left the Congress and joined the BJP, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) spokesperson Sharan Prakash Patil has said that the BJP is making an attempt to show the former Chief Minister in bad light by distorting his statement and project him as anti-Dalit.
“It is true that Mr. Siddaramaiah referred to a few Dalit leaders by name and said that they had joined the BJP, an anti-Dalit party, for the sake of livelihood. The BJP leaders are, however, trying to project him as anti-Dalit by distorting his statement and conveniently applying it to the entire Dalit community,” Mr. Patil said at a press conference that he, along with another KPCC spokesperson Priyank Kharge, attended at the District Congress Committee office here on Wednesday.
Hailing Mr. Siddaramaiah as a man of integrity and commitment towards the poor and unprivileged masses, Mr. Patil said that it was the Siddaramaiah government that had introduced an Act making a provision for allocation of budgetary funds under Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) for Scheduled Tribes (STs) proportionate to the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
“Karnataka was the second State in the country to come up with such a radical law to ensure adequate fund flow for the development of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. In his prolonged political career, Mr. Siddaramaiah had always displayed genuine concerns in words and deeds for the development of the poor and marginalised sections. A number of programmes and initiatives that Mr. Siddaramaiah implemented in his five-year term as Chief Minister themselves speak volumes about his commitment to the downtrodden. The irony is that the BJP leaders who are accused of various frauds and have no moral rights are attacking Mr. Siddaramaiah for his remarks,” he said.
Referring to the recent Supreme Court decisions in the Pegasus spyware case and the Lakhimpur Kheri incident in which four farmers were killed after an SUV in the convoy of Union Minister of State for Home Affairs and MP Ajay Kumar Mishra’s son Ashish ran over them, Mr. Patil said that the appointment of panels by the Supreme Court for investigation in the cases is a big slap on the BJP Governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh.
Mr. Kharge, when asked about the bitcoin scam in the State, said that the government is deliberately denying investigation as many BJP leaders are involved in the scam.
“It is a gigantic scam involving transactions of thousands of crores rupees. The government is making all efforts to deny and derail the investigation as many BJP leaders are involved in it. The scam will force Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to step down. The BJP had three Chief Ministers last time when it formed the government and the same will repeat this time also,” Mr. Kharge said.
