A day before Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai will present the last Budget before the state assembly elections, the Opposition alleged the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to fulfil 91% of the 600 promises made in the 2018 Manifesto.
Congress general secretary of All India Congress Committee (AICC) Randeep Singh Surjewala on Thursday termed the chief minister a “habitual lair” over his alleged failure to fulfil his promises of 2022-23.
Surjewala in Bengaluru asked the chief minister, “Why is that out of 339 actionable promises, 207 remain as ornamental “government orders”, and 132 of the promises have not been implemented at all?.”
“Why government spent only 56% of the budgetary allocations of the budget 2022-23?”
Out of ₹2.5 lakh crore allotted, Surjewala said, only ₹1.4 lakh crore was spent and alleged that Bommai failed to spend even 50 per cent of the promised ₹3,000 crore for Kalyana Karnataka districts of the state.
Dwelling on the reservation, Surjewala alleged that Bommai deceived all the communities with “fake” promises and questioned, “Why have Bommai and Prime Minister Narendra Modi not placed the enhanced Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Reservation Bill in the 9th schedule of the Constitution?”
He further said the government failed to fulfil 24 of the 26 promises made to the women of the state. “What happened to the ₹10,000 Cr ‘Stree Unnati Nidhi’? Where are the ‘Free Smartphones for girls of Karnataka?” he asked.
KPCC president D K Shivakumar demanded that the government should release the report card on the performance of last year’s budget ahead of presenting the fresh one on Friday so that the “people get to know the performance record”.
“Why the BJP government failed to deliver on its promises? Were the ministers not working or were the officials not responding properly? We want the chief minister to explain why the budget programmes were not implemented,’’ he demanded.
“The BJP government had promised to give 10 hours of uninterrupted 3-phase power supply to irrigation pump sets but miserably failed,’’ he said, lashing out at the ruling BJP and its leaders for criticizing the Congress party’s promise of supplying 200 units of free power to all domestic consumers.
“Both Bommai and Yediyurappa must answer to the people for their failures,” he added.
He further questioned the promises the Bommai is expected to make in the Budget.
Shivakumar said the Election Commission was likely to announce the schedule for elections on or by March 7.
“When that happens, what is the sanctity of the budgetary promises made on Friday, February 17, and can the BJP or the government implement its budget programmes when the model code of conduct comes into force on March 7,” he asked.
Responding to the allegations, Bommai said he would “answer the Opposition’s question in the Assembly”.