Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Karnataka has a “helpless” government and the Chief Minister is “remote-controlled”, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy ridiculed him for touring the country claiming that he had done everything in the last 55 months and nothing had been done for 70 years.
Addressing the farming community after presentation of the Krishi Pandit awards to progressive farmers at the Banquet Hall of the State Secretariat here, Mr. Kumaraswamy said Mr. Modi spoke volumes about farmers but his decisions were not implementable.
The Modi government has released only ₹415 crore against the State’s demand for ₹ 2,000 crore for tackling drought, he said. “Mr. Modi not only cut funds under MNREGA, but also denied promised funds under the scheme to the State,” the Chief Minister said.
On Mr. Modi’s allegations that the State government was doing injustice to farmers by not cooperating in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, Mr. Kumaraswamy pointed out that the State had waived crop loans amounting to ₹11,000 crore this year and ₹13,000 crore had been set aside for 2019-20. But the Union government has done no more than deposit ₹2,000 in the bank accounts of farmers, he said. Taking a dig at Mr. Modi, he said: “Politics should not come in the way of helping farmers to better their lives.”
Earlier, farmers who had came to the Banquet Hall declined to take the awards from Agriculture Minister N.H. Shivashankar Reddy and demanded the presence of the Chief Minister. Mr. Kumaraswamy, who arrived to the function behind schedule, presented the awards and said that farmers’ welfare was the highest priority of his government.