Drought study a farce, BJP MPs should pressure Centre for drought relief: Siddaramaiah
Siddaramaiah on Tuesday slammed the BJP, calling the party's drought study tour a «farce,» a day after the BJP formed several teams to tour across Karnataka. BJP leaders, he said, should be pressurising the Centre to obtain drought relief for the state instead.
The saffron party had announced on Monday that teams led by former chief ministers BS Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai and other leaders would travel the state and study the drought situation everywhere.
The party hopes to show the Congress in a poor light to the public at the grassroot levels in the run up to the Lok Sabha polls.
Siddaramaiah, who has begun a social media campaign on X against what he called Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s lack of response and unfairness to Karnataka’s water crisis, demanded that the state’s BJP MPs at least arrange a meeting for him with the PM. “You fooled the innocent people of Karnataka by claiming that if the 'double engine' government comes into power, the state would witness unprecedented development, and managed to win 25 seats in the last Lok Sabha elections.
What are these MPs doing? Why are they sitting idle?” he said.
He accused the BJP of purposelessly forming teams to study the drought, saying a Central team had already assessed the situation in the state. “Don't you trust your own government's drought study team?” he asked.
The Centre, he said, had not contributed any money towards what the state had asked. “According to our government's study, the estimated loss due to the drought is around Rs 33,770 crore. We have requested Rs 17,901 crore relief from the union government.
