Cong big guns blast BJP at Mysore rally

The Congress leaders targeted Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and his government and they vowed not to rest till the BJP government was ousted from power in the State.

Addressing the rally, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, Siddaramaiah, asked Yeddyurappa to come out with the cash balance in the State exchequer. “After my last budget, the treasury had surplus cash balance of Rs 4,500 crore. In the last four years, the governments have emptied the treasury. The Congress will not rest till Yeddyurappa steps down,” he said.

He predicted snap polls in the State, stating the Chief Minister planned to dissolve the Assembly after presenting a vote on account on February 24.

He took a dig at the BJP government for organising a mega convention to mark 1,000 days of being in power. “What has Yeddyurappa achieved to hold such a ceremony,” Siddaramaiah wanted to know.

KPCC President G Parameshwara said BJP National President Nitin Gadkari was a beneficiary of the corruption and irregularities committed by the Chief Minister and his Cabinet colleagues in denotifying land and in iron ore mining.

Because of this, the high command never dared to ask Yeddyurappa to step down from his post. He said the Congress party would launch a statewide ‘Save Karnataka’ campaign to remove the BJP government.

When the Opposition took a suitcase full of documents on the irregularities committed by the government to the legislature, Yeddyurappa failed to come for a debate, the leaders said. For the Chief Minister and the ministers, development meant personal development, they declared.

Union Ministers Mallikarjuna Kharge and K H Muniyappa accused the State government of misusing the funds sanctioned by the Central government and sought a CBI inquiry into the church attack cases. Noting that the Congress too had respect towards the mutts in the State, the leaders said Yeddyurappa was behaving as though he had taken the mutts on contract.