Covid-19 loot reduced after Oppn raised queries: Siddaramaiah

Contending that the loot by those in the government had reduced after the Opposition raised questions on irregularities, Congress leader Siddaramaiah said that the government had withheld several procurement orders.

“Govt has withheld procurement orders worth thousands of crores of rupees. They are angry that I am not allowing them to loot. Hence, they are trying to target me,” he said in a tweet.

Lashing out at the B S Yediyurappa-led government over the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Siddaramaiah alleged that there are regular reports of patients suffering from lack of beds, medicines, ambulances and ventilators. “However, the BJP government is blind to the problems faced by the people. They can only eye the money in procuring medical equipment,” he said.

Recalling that Yediyurappa had assured to send all procurement details to him within 24 hours, Siddaramaiah said that it has now been 24 days, but nothing had come his way

“I have not received a single sheet of information from the government,” Siddaramaiah said.

Commenting on the legal notice issued to him and KPCC president D K Shivakumar, he said that BJP had only made the Congress’ job easy. “We wanted to approach the court anyway,” he said, adding that the government will now be under compulsion to submit the documents, at least to the court.

The Congress was silent about the state handling the Covid-19 crisis initially, as the number of cases were low compared to other states. Now, Karnataka is set to surpass Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra in the number of cases and deaths, he said, adding that being silent at such a juncture would be against the interests of the people of Karnataka.