JOIN USBJP national president Amit Shah on Saturday launched a tirade against the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka for shielding corrupt ministers.
“The Karnataka government is the most corrupt in India. It’s shameless. People are getting raided, but no one resigns,” Shah said, in an apparent reference to Energy Minister D K Shivakumar who was raided by income tax authorities.
Shah, the saffron party’s key strategist, was addressing a jam-packed hall comprising scholars, businesspersons and doctors. Shah arrived in Bengaluru on Saturday morning to begin his three-day tour of the state.
Shah targetted Siddaramaiah, saying the Congress government should be “thrown out for eating up all of the Centre’s grants”. He likened the Centre to a power plant that supplies electricity to all states. “The state government here is like a burnt transformer. That’s why people here get nothing. Still, Siddaramaiah complains that the Centre is not giving enough funds,” Shah charged, urging people to make state party president B S Yeddyurappa the next chief minister.
The previous UPA government had earmarked Rs 61,691 crore for Karnataka under the 13th Finance Commission, he said. “The Modi government has given Karnataka Rs 1.86 lakh crore under the 14th Finance Commission. Where’s all this money going? Siddaramaiah has to answer this. Regardless of whether people ask for it, I will demand that he shows the accounts,” he said.
Amid speculation that the state party unit was beset with bickering, Shah said the BJP was the only party in India with its internal democracy in tact. “Who’ll replace Sonia Gandhi as the Congress president? No doubt it’ll be Rahul Gandhi. Who’ll replace H D Deve Gowda in JD(S)? It’ll be his son Kumaraswamy. But who’ll replace me? No one knows. That’s how democratic the BJP is,” he said.