Legislators' junket an unpardonable crime, says Yeddyurappa

Terming the foreign tour by legislators of the State as an “unpardonable crime,” former chief minister B S Yeddyurappa has demanded that Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar should direct all the legislators to cancel their tours and return to the State.

Yeddyurappa, who is back in Bangalore after completing his 10-day tour in drought-hit districts, criticised the legislators for the foreign trip and said they shouldn’t even be stepping out of the State, given the severe drought condition.

“If the MLAs are my supporters, I sincerely request them to come back. In fact there’s no need for them to travel to other states also.

I will ask the chief minister, Assembly Speaker and the Council chairman to direct the legislators to come back. If they don’t, then people of their constituencies will teach them a lesson,” he told a press conference on Saturday.

Yeddyurappa said he had travelled to nine districts – Tumkur, Chitradurga, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Dharwad, Gadag, Shimoga, Mysore and Chamarajanagar, from August 21 to 31.

He said non-availability of drinking water and acute shortage of fodder were the main problems faced by the people. He had drafted  a letter to the chief minister about his observations, he said.

The former chief minister said the drinking water problem was because of shortage of power supply and urged the government to purchase more power. While accusing the Centre of not heeding the demands by states reeling under drought, especially Karnataka, he slammed the officialdom for remaining lax.

“There is an eerie silence in all the districts as the officers haven’t bothered to pay attention to the problems.” Yeddyurappa said most agricultural labourers were without jobs. He said he had seen very few of them working under MGNREGS.

“Most farmers complained of not being paid since last year. The State should make the payments and then seek reimbursement from the Centre,” he said.

He asked the Centre to reimburse Rs 3,500 crore that was spent by the State on waiving farm loans and demanded that 35 kg of rice and wheat being distributed by the Centre in four districts be extended to all drought-hit districts.