Asianet: Bengaluru: Sunday, July 08, 2018.
Karnataka
Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who preached austerity, stands exposed. His
double standards were revealed through a Right To Information (RTI) query in
Bengaluru.
On July 5,
Kumaraswamy, hailed as the farmers’ leader, presented a favourable budget to
them as he waved off crop loans as promised before the polls in May. While
helping the farmers, the JD(S) CM burdened the middle class with fuel and power
tariff hikes.
After he took
over as state CM, Kumaraswamy has emphasised on cutting costs. He was against
additional spending on the remodelling of government offices and also asked
Department of Personnel Administrative Reforms (DPAR) not to buy new cars for
legislators.
But all this
talk seems to be hollow, as show by a reply to an RTI query. Kumaraswamy has
spent a whopping Rs 42,89,940 for his oath-taking ceremony which lasted for
only five minutes! It translates to more than Rs 8 lakh per minute. It is such
a waste of tax payers’ money.
This large
amount was spent just on decoration and high tea at Vidhana Soudha. This fund
did not include the accommodation and transportation facilities for the high
profile guests including Chief Ministers of various states, who came for the
event.
Apart from
the vast amount spent on his swearing-in ceremony, there are three primary
reasons of Kumaraswamy’s hypocrisies, which were apparent in his budget.
Kumaraswamy,
son of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, said he would take the risk of
waiving farm loans amounting to Rs 34,000 crore. This posed as a major challenge
to him. He did his job to waive off crop loans of up to Rs 2 lakh. But now it
has emerged that Bengaluru Mayor R Sampath Raj and his deputy Padmavathi
Narasimhamurthy promised to chip in for the loan waiver scheme as they and the
rest of the Bengaluru councillors will contribute their two months’ wages. All
198 corporators, cutting across party lines, offered to donate their two-month
income to assist the government in the farm loan waiving scheme.
Kumaraswamy
claimed that he would make up for the deficit by bringing in austerity measures
besides raising funds through markets. The first mechanism has never paid
dividends as it is impossible to raise considerable funds needed for a loan
waiver by imposing austerity measures.
Considering
the buoyancy in the market, a state like Karnataka can borrow loans, but the
effectiveness of programmes implementation will be a big worry for him.
The BJP had a
field day as Kumaraswamy announced a tax hike for petrol and diesel. The party
used the above-Rs-1-per-litre hike by the Congress-JD(S) government in the
state to hit back at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, who recently threw a
"fuel challenge" at Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The first
budget of Kumaraswamy will cost the treasury Rs. 34,000 crore, for loan waiver.
For revenue, the Karnataka government has turned to a marginal increase in the
prices for electricity, tax for liquor and fuel.
In May,
Congress had launched an attack on the NDA government over hike in fuel prices.
The party demanded a decrease in petrol and diesel taxes or bringing them under
the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Gandhi had targeted the Prime Minister
repeatedly, tweeting "is this a joke" when fuel prices came down by
one paisa on May 30.
Petrol and
diesel prices were raised again after a gap of 36 days. In this period, the
petrol prices were cut 22 times and diesel 18 times. Petrol prices were
increased by 16 to 17 paise in metro cities and the diesel price was hiked by
10-12 paise.
Kumaraswamy
went to Karnataka’s coastal areas to seek God’s blessings at various temples,
but there is a rumour that the absence of JD(S) in the coastal districts denied
the region of any budget benefits.
Various
sections of the society have raised this doubt as the budget has not given any
specific project to the coastal areas of Udupi and Dakshina Kannada.
People of
coastal districts feel that the concern which Kumaraswamy used to express about
the problems of areca nut growers, fishermen and infrastructure in the coastal
region before the elections, has failed to translate into projects.
Earlier, he
had also declared that though his party may not get any seat in Dakshina
Kannada and Udupi, he would work for the development of these regions. But the
budget has failed to give any schemes to both districts. People feel they have
been targeted as they did not support JD(S).
BJP leaders
too expressed their anger at this. During Kumaraswamy's meeting with the
intellectuals in Mangaluru in March, he had defined Mangaluru as the most
important city next to Bengaluru and had stressed the need for the development
of Mangaluru. But in his entire budget speech, there is no mention of
Mangaluru.
The coastal
districts provide the highest revenue to the state government, and now they are
neglected.
He has
provided help to the horticulture growers of old Mysuru region but not coastal
people. Usually, budgets declare some programmes for fishermen. But in this
budget, there is nothing for them. Even in fishing, he has announced help for
inland fishing. It is sea fishing which helps in securing foreign exchange and
revenue for the government.
An RTI reply
on expenditure on two CMs’ oath-taking ceremony shows that Kumaraswamy
overdoing things despite his tall claims of austerity. The state government had
spent Rs 15,93,000 for high tea when BS Yeddyurappa took oath as CM inside the
Glass House of governor's office on May 17. The oath-taking ceremony lasted
only for five minutes. He had to submit his resignation after failing to prove
his majority in the Assembly. Few days later, Kumaraswamy spent nearly Rs 43
lakh for his ceremony at Vidhana Soudha.