Siddaramaiah rues absenteeism of legislators in sessions

Siddaramaiah

Politicians who usually say that they will be grateful for one opportunity to enter Vidhana Soudha as a legislator, fail to attend sessions after they get elected, Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah lamented.

He urged legislators to take part in the deliberations and ensure that the Bills passed in the legislature are for the welfare of the poor. He was addressing a training session organised for MLCs here on Thursday.

As part of the training session, Siddaramaiah spoke to the MLCs about the significance of the annual financial budget and outlined the various features of it. Expressing concerns about taxation by the present government, he said there is a need for a serious introspection on how the taxes on common people are going up. While the basic idea of a welfare state is to tax the rich and make use of the funds for the welfare of the poor, today the burden of tax on the poor is going up, he said.

He also raised concerns about the high committed expenditure of the state. "In 2020-21, the committed expenditure of the state was at 102%, according to the medium term fiscal plan," he pointed out, adding that unless the committed expenditure is reduced, debts would increase.

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