Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai discusses Hangal defeat, developmental issues with PM Modi

Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked him not to bother about the Bitcoin scandal in the state.

After meeting Modi at the Prime Minister's Office, he said that discussion on the Bitcoin scandal did not come up in the meeting. "When I started telling him about the scandal, he cut me short asking me not to bother about all this," he claimed.

Modi asked him to continue serving the people with more dedication and courage, Bommai said.

"The meeting with the Prime Minister went off very well. We discussed a lot of issues. He was especially keen on administration and our decisions during the last 100 days. How things could be made better was also deliberated upon," he said.

Bommai said that he had extended an invitation to the Prime Minister to attend four programmes in December. "The Prime Minister happily agreed for a Karnataka visit. He asked me to split the programmes and assured me that he would visit the state twice," he added.

The Prime Minister has agreed to lay the foundation stone for the Railway Suburban Project, and inaugurate the Ambedkar School of Economics and other projects in Bengaluru.

He said Modi appreciated the scholarship scheme aimed at the farmers' children. He said this project should succeed as Karnataka is the only state which has farmers' data in digital format. He expressed his desire to emulate the scheme in the entire country, he underlined.

The Transparency Act brought by the state government was liked by the Prime Minister who called it a "revolutionary" step. There was also a long discussion on the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), Bommai said.

"On losing Hangal bypoll, the Prime Minister advised to take winning and losing in the same way and asked me to set a target for 2023 general elections and win people's hearts," Bommai said.

Bommai also said he met BJP President J.P. Nadda and discussed upcoming elections in the state. "I also met Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday. It was a brief meeting," he said.

Asked if they discussed the Bitcoin scandal, Bommai said that being the Home Minister, Amit Shah would have more information on the issue than him.

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