CM holds 'cordial' pre-budget meet with dalit leaders

Wednesday’s pre-budget meeting of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah with various communities almost turned into a show of strength.

With back-to-back pre-budget meetings with various castes and communities, Siddaramaiah began his day by having a meeting with dalit organisations and leaders. He later scheduled meetings with backward classes organisations and later minority community leaders.

It is said that as many as 52 dalit organisations were invited to the pre-budget meeting. Barring two organisations, representatives from 50 organisations and other leaders met Siddaramaiah at his official residence Krishna. Close to 300 people participated in the meeting.

Dalit leader Siddalingaiah said the meeting was quite cordial. “The issue of dalit chief minister did not arise. The chief minister assured us of the government’s intent for imple-menting the schemes which can uplift the community,” he said.

Receptive ministers
Siddalingaiah said both Siddaramaiah and Social Welfare Minister Anjaneya were receptive to the issues raised by the dalit organisations. “The government heard our pleas on the Karnataka Scheduled Cases Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (Planning, Allocation and Utilisation of Financial Resources) Act, 2013, wherein Section 7(d) speaks of allocation towards certain non-divisible infrastructure projects which are deemed to have been spent as per the government allocation from the funds meant for the community. We have raised certain concerns and they were taken seriously by the chief minister,” he said. 

Speaking to the media, after his meeting with dalit leaders, Siddaramaiah said that there was nothing to the meeting barring discussions on the budgetary requirements for the community.

Conciliatory effort
The meeting with dalit leaders and organisations had raised a lot of speculations, in the backdrop of a clamour for a dalit chief minister to replace Siddaramaiah. The meeting was seen as a conciliatory effort by Siddaramaiah towards the dalit community.

“We have been allocating special funds to the dalits previously. This time also, I had invited the dalit leaders to seek their opinions and suggestions for preparing the budget. We will provide, in future also, funds for the upliftment of the community,” he said.
DH News Service