Cong to lodge plaint against Pratap Simha

Mysuru: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman M Lakshmana on Sunday said that the party would lodge a complaint with the Mysuru deputy commissioner accusing MP Pratap Simha of misusing the local area development (LAD) funds. Lakshmana charged the Mysuru MP of donating an ambulance worth Rs 18 lakh to a Dakshina Kannada-based hospital. The KPCC spokesman said that Simha had donated an additional Rs 5 lakh to an organisation associated with the same hospital.
Admitting that there were provisions in the law permitting an MP to spend Rs 25 lakh of the LAD funds outside one’s constituency, cooperative societies and trusts could not be the beneficiaries, Lakshamana said. “The government coffers having gone dry, a controversial circular, now withdrawn, was issued for collecting money from parents of students enrolled in government schools. The government appears not to have enough funds to upgrade infrastructure in government schools,” he said.