Deve Gowda defends HDK's budget

JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Saturday refuted a charge by section of Congress leaders that injustice has been meted out to north Karnataka in the state budget presented by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy recently.

“The chief minister has already clarified that all programmes of the previous Congress government will continue. A large number of programmes and projects were announced for north Karnataka by the previous government. So the question of injustice does not arise,” he told reporters.

Senior Congress leader and former minister H K Patil had said that north Karnataka has been neglected in the budget. He had appealed former minister Siddaramaiah to convene a meeting of the Coordination and Monitoring Committee to discuss the issue.

Further, Gowda dismissed as senseless Opposition BJP’s charge that Vokkaliga farmers benefit more from the loan waiver scheme announced in the budget. “I don’t how the Opposition came up with this theory. Vokkaliga community people are in four to five districts of old Mysuru region. Are there Vokkaligas in places like Mangaluru and Bidar?” he said.

He said he does not want to speak much on the budget, and Kumaraswamy will reply to all these issues in the Assembly.