Revanna calls budget Congress manifesto

JD(S) leader H D Revanna on Saturday pooh-poohed the revised State budget for 2013-14 presented by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, calling it the Congress manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Addressing reporters, he alleged that the chief minister had tried to please backward classes with an eye on the polls. Otherwise, Congress governments did not care for them. They had done nothing for the uplift of backward classes and instead, used them as votebanks, he charged.

Moreover, Siddaramaiah had only created a hype on the development of backward classes.

Actually, no major scheme had been announced for them in the budget, Revanna said. Almost all programmes of the previous BJP government had been continued.
Siddaramaiah's budget was old wine in a new bottle, the JD(S) leader said.

Allocation to the irrigation sector was not adequate to take up Upper Krishna Project III and modernisation of existing projects in the Cauvery basin region.

Priority sectors like health, urban development and education had been neglected, he said.