HK Patil flays CM for his faith in the corrupt ministers

Udupi, January 23: Congress leader and former minister H K Patil has criticized Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda for his 'close association with corrupt ministers and corrupt people'

Mr Patil who visited the city to take the opinions of party leaders and workers on selecting a unanimous candidate from Congress for the impending Udupi-Chikmagalur Lok Sabha bi-elections, opined that CM had been exaggerating minister of his cabinet Murugesh Nirani, who had been involved in a 10,000 acre denotification scam, by keeping him close to him.

“CM has confidence in the corrupts. People closely watch his moves and deals with the corrupts and teach BJP a lesson in the next elections”, Patil said.

“Congress government in the state supplied up to 30 KGs of rice at Rs 3 per KG. But today the BJP government is providing only up to 16 KGs of rice per family. The government did not take children below the age of 12 into consideration while deciding the BPL families and its requirements. This is an injustice done to the poor. Likewise during the SM Krishna's period government had built upto 10 lakh houses for the poor. But today BJP government, though publicised to build 40 houses in each of the grama panchayaths, failed utterly to fulfill its promises.

HK Patil said that though Congress lost most of the bi elections including Bellary, Congress prospects had been improved in the state. On the other hand BJP even lost its deposit in Bellary elections. As per the feedback they received from workers and party leaders, Congress' fortunes had bridghtened in the state. Replying to reporters he said that names of Jayaprakash Hegde, who lost the last elections by a small margin, Vinay Kumar Sorake, Taradevi, BL Shankar and Hariprasad have been refered by the party workers for the forhcoming bi-elections to the Udupi-Chikmagalur parliamentary seat and they would submit a report to the KPCC by Tuesday.

Speaking on the occassion KPCC observer VR Sudarshan alleged the BJP government in the state of hiding the contributions and grants of the Congress led Central government for political reasons. “Out of the total state budgetary allocation of Rs 38,000 crores, Rs 23,000 crores had been a grant from the central government. PM's Grameena Sadak Yojana had been central government programme with 100 percent grants from the center, Indira Avaz Yojana with 75 per cent grants from the center, Rajeev Gandhi Rural Electrification programme with 90 per cents grants from the center. But the state government had been partial in publicising the programmes”, he said.

KPCC has decided to bring out a booklet with facts and figures on the same and will also form district and block level monitoring committees to oversee the implementation of UPA flagship programmes.