Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Monday assured the people of the state that the five guarantees that have already been implemented would stay as long as the party is in power and called out the BJP for “lying” that they would be scrapped after the Lok Sabha polls.
“The BJP has been saying that we would scrap the five guarantees after the Parliament elections. Let me make it clear that under no circumstances will these schemes be stopped when we are in power,” he said during a media conference in the city on Monday to mark the completion of the first year in office of the Congress government.
He said the state government had already spent ₹36,000 crore to roll out the five guarantees. This comes at a time when the Congress has made similar promises in its national manifesto.
The five guarantees include the Shakti scheme that offers free bus rides to women, the Gruha Jyoti scheme that provides 200 units of free electricity to households, Anna Bhagya that provides 5kg free rice over and above the 5kg already being distributed to the poor, the Gruha Lakshmi scheme that provides a monthly allowance of ₹2,000 each to women from poor families, and the Yuva Nidhi unemployment allowance of ₹3,000 to graduates and ₹1,500 to diploma holders for two years or until they get employed, whichever is sooner.
The Congress is riding on these guarantees, considered one of the reasons that helped it return to power in the state a year ago. Similar guarantees later drove the party to power in Telangana.
Siddaramaiah also rubbished the BJP’s allegations that the welfare schemes have left the state bankrupt with no funds to spare for other projects.
“BJP leaders (B.S.) Yediyurappa, (state president) Vijayendra (Yediyurappa), (Basavaraj) Bommai and (R.) Ashoka have been repeatedly saying that because of our schemes, the state is now bankrupt and our treasury is empty. Let them lie, but their lies should be closer to the truth,” he said.
Siddaramaiah countered the allegations with official data to prove that the state’s financial health was under no stress. “We had earmarked ₹54,386 crore as capital expenditure in our state budget for 2023-2024. But we ended up spending ₹56,284 crore. We had allocated ₹16,369 crore for irrigation, but spent ₹18,198 crore,” he said.
The chief minister also slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for claiming that the Congress government had “snatched” the reservations meant for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and given the share to Muslims.
