Who got rich in 7 years, asks HDK; cites RSS leader’s comments

A day after RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale expressed concerns over poverty and unemployment, former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday mocked the BJP’s promise of ‘Achche Din’ (good days).

“One doesn’t require special expertise to say who has flourished and who has lost everything in the seven-year BJP rule in the country. Hosabale himself has said that 20 crore people are below poverty line & 4 crore youth are unemployed. Then who became rich in last 7 years?” Kumaraswamy asked in a series of tweets.

Kumaraswamy said 23 crore people are earning less than Rs 375 per day “while one industrialist is making Rs 42 crore per hour & Rs 6,000 crore per week”.

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The JD(S) leader also expressed shock that one person held 20 per cent of India’s wealth.

“Is it not a national shame that there are people struggling for one meal a day?,” Kumaraswamy said, adding that malnutrition is “rampant” and lakhs of villages do not have drinking water.

Urging the BJP to wake up, Kumaraswamy warned that rising economic inequality could lead to “bigger rage” and that India getting caught in “the web of corporate world” was not a good sign.

‘Give Rs 50 crore to our MLCs’

Kumaraswamy said he would lead a delegation to meet Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and demand Rs 50 crore to be granted to every JD(S) MLC.

This demand is based on BJP MLC C P Yogeshwar getting Rs 50 crore under the local area development (LAD) scheme for the Channapatna Assembly constituency that Kumaraswamy represents.

“The government released Rs 50 crore for local area development fund only to the MLC from Channapatna based on his request. The same should be extended to MLCs of our party too,” Kumaraswamy told reporters.