BENGALURU: Former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda has shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticising that his colleagues in the state were wallowing in crude display of wealth while the common people were making sacrifices.
“Gali Janardhan Reddy, erstwhile minister from your party in Karnataka, has spent more than `200 crore on a lavish wedding. As you were making tearful entreaties to poor people to sacrifice and bear with difficulties, your colleagues from BJP were wallowing in this crude display of wealth of one of their own who was jailed for illegal mining, whose all properties were presumably confiscated by law enforcement agencies. Such spending could only come from black money,” he wrote.
Gowda sought a modification of the circular which has prevented district central cooperative banks (DCCs) from accepting demonetised currency notes and allow them to accept deposits to help the farming community.
He outlined that there are 21 DCC banks in Karnataka with 706 branches which have 45.91 lakh deposit accounts.
“Farmers who have availed crop loans from the cooperative cannot repay the loans to the DCC banks. If they fail to repay within due dates, they will not be eligible to get interest subsidy from the government. There are more than two lakh self-help groups in Karnataka with a total of nearly 30 lakh members. They are also unable to pay their dues within the stipulated due date and are losing the benefit of interest subsidy and other benefits of the state and the Centre,” he wrote.