Karnataka: Voices against guarantees get louder in Congress, putting pressure on CM Siddaramaiah
Voices within the ruling Congress calling for a reassessment of the five guarantees are getting louder after the party came a distant second in the Lok Sabha polls even after pledging Rs 52,000 crore annually on these programmes.
Modi 3.0 Live
Modi 3.0 is here! Familiar faces, fresh additions, and the big portfolio puzzle
Modi-fying growth: India plans policy twist for jobs & investment
No place for losers: Modi sends a clear message with Cabinet 3.0
The promise of guarantees, on which the party rode to power in the assembly polls last year, launched the programmes one after the other that include free bus rides for women, free supply of electricity up to 200 units a month and cash transfer of Rs 2000 per month per woman head of a family. The party replicated the template it pioneered in Karnataka in other state assembly polls as well as the recent Lok Sabha elections.
In the run up to the Lok Sabha polls, Congress MLA HC Balakrishna (Magadi) was the first to suggest that the party regime must weigh on a rollback of the guarantee schemes if the party were to fare poorly in the election. He had told the CM that if people don't elect a good number of Congress candidates, then the government must stop the guarantees and divert that money for other development programmes.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president DK Shivakumar were confident of winning between 15 and 20 out of 28 seats in the state but the party ended up with nine seats. Some of the ministers failed to secure
