'State failed to avert bomb blast despite alert from Centre'

State government should be held responsible for utter negligence, says Shobha Karandlaje

Udupi-Chikkamagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje alleged that the Congress led State government has failed to avert bomb blast in Bengaluru on Sunday night, despite receiving alert call from the Central government.

Speaking to media persons, the parliamentarian said the State government should be held responsible for its utter negligence. The central government had warned of the likely terror attack being targeted on busy streets in the IT city.

She said that the negligence proves that the State government is inactive. The State government is recklessly behaving in spite of exposure of the capital city to terror targets which was proven with the arrest of the ISIS twitter handle operator Mehdi Masoor Biswas by the police recently. Karandlaje said both the chief minister and home minsiter were not in the capital during the terror attack. She said as per the norms, either one of them should have been in Bengaluru after the intelligence wing received the threat of terrorism activities in Bengaluru.

Coming down heavily on the lack of coordination between the chief minister and the home minister, the parliamentarian said this exemplifies that the irresponsibility of the State government in maintaining law and order mechanism.

 She accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of showing indifferent gesture by asking who Yasin Bhatkal is, before the media.

The same negligence CM continues even to this day with regard to terrorism, she added. She also urged the home minister to strengthen police forces in cities like Hubballi, Mangaluru, Bhatkal, Mysuru and Bengaluru.

Coming down heavily on State government over Kasturirangan report, Karandlaje said that State government is not serious about the ill effects of implementation of Kasturirangan report on the protection of ecologically sensitive areas (ESAs) of Western Ghats based on satellite survey.

She said that she has written to the union ministry of environment and forests to extend the deadline by six months to file the opinion on the Kasturirangan report and sought leniency in it to permit soil and sand mining and to allow construction of houses by poor inhabitants.

She said that state government’s clarification that a cabinet sub-committee will elicit the views of the people is nothing but an eye washing act as even the CM does not know who heads the cabinet sub-committee.

She further said that as the matter is before the National Green Tribunal, and recommendations of the gram sabhas will have to be incorporated before finalizing on the ESAs.

Pointing out that it was UPA government, which succumbed to a cigarette manufacturing company’s lobby, and had submitted affidavit to the Supreme Court seeking ban on arecanut, the parliamentarian said the union government is contemplating to levy high import duty on the arecanut procured from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries and thereby bring stability in the price of arecanut grown here.

She also said that she would urge the ministry concerned in the central government to give compensation for farmers whose arecanut plantations had been hit by yellow leaf disease.