Congress to launch Prajadhwani bus yatra from Belagavi today

BENGALURU: Opposition Congress leaders’ ‘Prajadhwani yatra’ to highlight what they called the State Government’s failures and the party’s vision for the development will start from Belagavi on Wednesday. KPCC president DK Shivakumar, former chief minister Siddaramaiah and other senior leaders will attend programmes in Belagavi and Chikkodi on the first day of the yatra.

They will take a Sankranti break from January 12 to 15 and resume the yatra from January 16. “During the bus yatra, we will highlight failures of the BJP government and our vision for Karnataka,” Shivakumar told reporters during a joint press conference with Siddaramaiah and other senior leaders. The party released a booklet on various allegations against the BJP government and launched a website to gather views from people.

The government failed on all fronts and corruption is rampant, Shivakumar said and added that the BJP government has not fulfilled 550 of the 600 promises made during the last elections. Siddaramaiah said Basavaraj Bommai is a weak CM who has failed to protect the state’s interest. In its interim report, the 15th Finance Commission recommended the release of Rs 5,495 crore special grants to the state, but Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, who is elected to Rajya Sabha from Karnataka rejected that recommendation, Siddaramaiah said.

The recommendation was left out in the final report as neither the State Government nor 25 BJP MPs from the state put pressure on the Centre, he said. The former CM said due to a reduction in the grants from the Centre, development works in the state have taken a hit and the state’s debt burden increased.

Siddraramaiah said people of Karnataka are disgusted with the government and during the yatra, the party leaders will try to understand their problems and expectations. In the first phase of the yatra, Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar will visit all the districts. In the second phase, they will split into two teams to cover all the Assembly segments.