Davangere: The Congress will take Karnataka to the top position in the country in the next three years and completely rid the state of the BJP and the JD(S), declared Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at the Sarvodaya Samavesha in Davangere on Saturday.
The mega convention was held at the Bapuji MBA College grounds to mark the completion of two years of the Congress government in the state.
“The Congress will come to power in the 2018 Assembly elections. It is our promise, commitment and plan,” Siddaramaiah said.
Hitting out at Prime Minister Modi, the CM accused him of doing nothing for the youth, farmers, women and the poor. He said Modi had not taken any interest in bringing back black money and putting Rs 15 lakh in the bank accounts of every Indian. The NDA government has failed to fulfil the promises made,” he said.
“I changed my mind on contesting the elections in 2018. I will form my own government and remove all roots of the BJP and the JD(S) from Karnataka. BJP national president Amit Shah had stated that Karnataka should be made free of the Congress. It is not possible for anyone from any party to touch our government or the Congress,” the CM said.
He said several members of the BJP had criminal backgrounds. “B S Yeddyurappa went to jail, 13 ministers are facing criminal charges, a minister raped his friend’s wife, MLAs of their party were caught watching a blue film in the Assembly… They did illegal and immoral things in the state and the people threw them out and gave power to the Congress. We have proved our worth,” he said.
He also slammed JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy for his village stay programme. “His party cannot win any election and will never rule the state in the future. He has no power to defeat the Congress,” the CM said.
“We are committed to the welfare of minorities, dalits and backward classes, but work for other castes too. Why should we fear claims that our government is a champion of minorities, dalits and backward classes? The BJP and the JD(S) are anti- dalit, anti-minority and anti-poor. They have land-grabbers, dacoits and thieves and never care for the poor,” the CM said.
Siddaramaiah said the Congress is committed to removing the roots of communal forces such as the BJP from the state. “Let them not have daydreams of coming to power. We will defeat them and send them home once and for all,” he said.
He said the government believed in Basavanna’s slogan of ‘work is worship’. The CM said Rs 13,000 crore had been set aside this year for irrigation works. For north Karnataka, Rs 1,000 crore has been reserved for development works. He urged Congress workers to make the state a model for others in terms of industrial growth and achieve self-sufficiency in power generation in the next three years.
Siddaramaiah gave a call to the Congress workers to defeat candidates backed by the BJP and the JD(S) in the upcoming gram panchayat elections.
Hitting out at the JD(S) and the BJP, he alleged that these two parties were against the poor, women, farmers, dalits and labourers, and lack morality.
Siddaramaiah said both the parties are blind to the development works being undertaken by the state government.
Listing out the achievements of the government, he said: “Because of Anna Bhagya, the poor can have two meals a day, and about 1.04 crore poor children are provided milk daily through Ksheera Bhagya. Loans to the tune of Rs 13,226 crore have been waived. If all these are not welfare works, then what are they?”
He said the BJP and JD(S) leaders have no moral right to comment on the performance of the government or criticise it. “The BJP government led by Narendra Modi came to power at the Centre promising better days. However, none of the promises made by him are fulfilled. Whereas our government fulfilled 100 out of the 165 promises made to people during the Assembly election campaign,” he added.
