'Are Kannadigas orphans?' HD Kumaraswamy, Tejasvi Surya spar over oxygen supply to Karnataka for Covid crisis

Former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Thursday charged that the Modi administration was “biased” against Karnataka on supplying oxygen, which led to an immediate counter-attack from the BJP that accused the JD(S) leader of citing “wrong” facts.

“Despite the court’s order to supply 1,200 MT of oxygen to Karnataka, all that the Centre gave the state is only 120 MT. The Centre has displayed the height of partiality by providing 1,680 MT of oxygen to Uttar Pradesh though it has fewer Covid cases compared to us,” Kumaraswamy said in a series of tweets.

“The Centre which is showing serious bias against Karnataka should understand clearly that it is functioning under a federal structure. Those running the government under federal structure should give equal priority to all the states,” Kumaraswamy said, wondering if Kannadigas had become “orphans” in the federal structure.

Read | 'Nothing to apologise for': Tejasvi Surya lists reforms in bed blocking system

The JD(S) leader asked the Centre to shun “arrogance that comes from the belief that it is most powerful” and take steps to fulfil Karnataka’s requirements.

BJP Bangalore South MP Tejasvi Surya hit back at Kumaraswamy.

“Dear Kumaranna, before tweeting a long thread you should have got facts right. Total allocation to Karnataka is 1015 MT + 60 MT of special allocation. That’s totally 1075 MT. The 120 MT that you mention is from only the one Oxy Express train that came to Bengaluru on May 11th,” Surya said.

According to Surya, the Modi administration ensured that all high-burden states got “equitable” attention. “Karnataka saw a massive jump of allocation from 300 MT on April 15 to 1015 MT allocation on May 11. As our cases increased, the Modi government immediately increased our oxygen allocation, too,” Surya pointed out.

The BJP Yuva Morcha national president urged Kumaraswamy to delete his tweet. “It’s not right to misguide people of our state with wrong information during a pandemic.”

BJP national general secretary CT Ravi also attacked Kumaraswamy. “As a responsible former CM, you need to consider facts and tweet," he tweeted.

Later, the JD(S) retorted that Kumaraswamy’s tweet was based on statistics put out by the Press Information Bureau. “The Bangalore South MP has asked Kumaraswamy to delete the tweets of him questioning the discrimination against Kannadigas. If false tweets are to be deleted, then the MP should delete his Twitter account itself,” the party said.