H D Kumaraswamy hits out at opposition, media for ‘misinterpreting’ the farmer-friendly budget

BENGALURU: Lashing out at the opposition and media for ‘misinterpreting’ the farmer-friendly budget, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Saturday dismissed the allegations made by the opposition and some coalition partners that the budget was South-centric. “Due to your wrong analysis (of the budget), farmers grow anxious and (might) commit suicide,” Kumaraswamy said, reiterating that the media had not understood the budget and accused it of misleading the general public.

JD(S) national president H D Deve Gowda too refuted the allegations of a biased budget and said that Kumaraswamy would respond to all the charges.

Following two farmer suicides reported a day after the loan waiver, Kumaraswamy requested farmers not to take any decisions hastily. “If you continue to commit suicide, why should we have taken the decision to waive the loans?” he questioned. Some sections of the media charged that the budget was biased to South Karnataka and unfair to the middle class population due to hike in excise duty and tax on petrol.

“I have heard all the criticism against the budget. The critics have not understood the finer details and the foresight in the budget, and have restricted themselves to discussing only hikes of petrol and diesel prices. 

“Where were these critics when the excise duty for petrol was increased from `9 to `19-20 in four years by Prime Minister Narendra Modi?” Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy asked.

Responding to the ‘South Karnataka bias’ charge by even Congress leaders such as H K Patil and the subsequent allegation that one-third of loan waiver beneficiaries were Vokkaligas, he said that contrary to popular belief, the highest beneficiaries of loan waiver were in North Karnataka districts such as Belagavi, Bagalkot and Vijayapura. “Are there a large number of Vokkaligas in these districts? For Mandya district, the extent of loan waiver from nationalised banks is`1,500 crore, whereas it is `4,700 cr for Belagavi and around Rs 3,000 crore for Bagalkot district,” he said. On a report that waiver was caste-based, he said that media organisations shouldn’t stoop to such a level.

On the criticism regarding ‘Compete with China’ scheme, Kumaraswamy said that the scheme was necessary as many investors were ready to invest in the state. “By announcing such a scheme, I am trying to build the investor confidence,” he said.