Go after coalition govt on loan waiver delay: BJP

With the Congress seeking to corner the Modi government and pitching for the loan waiver scheme at the national level, the BJP top brass feels that its leaders in Karnataka should go the whole hog against the Congress on various burning issues, including the loan waiver scheme.

The BJP national leadership wants its state unit to hit back at the JD(S)-Congress government, which is still struggling to implement the loan waiver scheme.

The state government itself officially claimed that, so far, it has waived the loans of only 800 farmers since the announcement of the scheme six months ago, having received 42 lakh applications. So, the BJP top brass feels it is an issue on which the Congress can be ‘exposed’.

The BJP top brass feels that the state leaders are “soft pedalling” the issue and asked them to be aggressive.

The BJP leadership has also not taken kindly to its state unit president B S Yeddyurappa’s recent meeting with Irrigation Minister D K Shivakumar.

Though Yeddyurappa claimed that he met the minister to discuss issues related to Shivamogga (his home district), the party leadership refused to buy the theory. The former chief ninister should have sent his son and Lok Sabha member B Y Raghavendra and party MLAs to meet the minister if it was about official works, said a senior leader in the BJP.

“When Income Tax Department and Enforcement Directorate (ED) probes are on against Shivakumar, the state unit chief meeting the minister sends a wrong message among the party cadre,” said the leader.

Several BJP state leaders also complained to the party top brass against Yeddyurappa’s closeness with some Congress leaders.

Earlier too, the saffron party’s top leadership pulled up the state leadership as it kept silent when Shivakumar attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah on the Income Tax and ED probes against him.