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Journalism of Courage
The Karnataka Congress on Wednesday launched its campaign for the upcoming Assembly polls and promised to provide 200 units of free electricity if voted to power, taking a leaf out of the AAP’s playbook.
At the Prajadhwani Yatra held at Chikkodi in Belagavi district, Congress leaders attacked the BJP government led by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai as the “most corrupt government” in the country.
“The first guarantee for the people of the state is that 200 units of power will be free,” said D K Shivakumar, the state party chief. This was along the lines of the announcements made by the AAP governments in Delhi and Punjab.
The Congress leader attacked the Bommai government for turning Karnataka into the country’s “corruption capital”. “This has to end and the state has to be brought back in the path of progress,” he said.
Accusing the government of being a “B report government”, he said that clean chits were given even before investigations were complete to protect BJP leaders and ministers.
Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala called the Bommai administration an “illegitimate government which has looted the state with both its hands”. “India’s most corrupt government is the Bommai government. This is the 40 per cent commission government,” he said, referring to allegations by the Karnataka State Contractors’ Association that ministers demanded a 40 per cent commission to clear pending bills.
Surjewala said there was a period when ‘Brand Karnataka’ had a great reputation in the country. “Under the BJP, however, businesses were shut in Karnataka and sent to Gujarat,” he alleged. Since 2019, 1,300 companies have shut up shop in the state, leaving more than one lakh people unemployed, he said.
Explaining the symbolism of sweeping the floor near the Gandhi well in Belagavi before the Yatra began, Opposition leader Siddaramaiah said that it meant that the Congress would remove the menace of corruption when voted to power.
Highlighting the deaths of contractors Santosh Patil, who had levelled corruption charges against former minister K S Eshwarappa ahead of his death by suicide, and Prasad, who died by suicide allegedly after failing to pay a 40 per cent commission to get his bills cleared, the former chief minister said that such incidents were a reflection of the widespread corruption in the state.
The BJP has deepened the communal divide in the state, he said, citing the hijab row, the ban on Muslim vendors around Hindu temples and the halal meat controversy, among others.
He urged the people to support the Congress in the coming polls.
