Stung by the repeated charges made by the Congress that the government had failed to respond to the needs of the people in the rain-affected districts, Mr Kumaraswamy said the opposition party was only politicising the issue.

“I feel the (Congress) leaders are behaving in an irresponsible manner by making baseless allegations during the time of crisis”, Mr Kumaraswamy said and added that there was no truth in their charge that the state government had failed to utilise the funds released by the Centre.“They are just after publicity,” he said and took exception at the Congress leaders of having submitted a parallel memorandum to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil during his visit to Bangalore on Sunday.

Releasing statistics at the press conference, Mr Kumaraswamy said that the state government alone had released Rs 125 crore this year for relief measures and said the state was not depending on funds from the Centre.

Mr Kumaraswamy also took exception to the charge that the bureaucrats were not working effectively and that he had no control over them. Mr Kumaraswamy said he faced the constrain of relinquishing the chief minister’s post in a short time, yet officials were responding to his directions.

He felt that the government’s achievement had been overshadowed by the issue of power transfer blown up by the media and opposition.

The Congress party delegation led by KPCC president Mallikarjun Kharge submitted a memorandum to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, during his visit on Sunday, demanding that the Centre should assist the state government in taking up relief works in rain-affected areas.

The party said that as many as 40 people died because of heavy rains, crop grown in more than 1,90,338 hectare vanished because of rains. In the memorandum the party alleged that the state government has been criticising the centre of step-motherly treatment towards the state.