KALABURAGI: RDPR and IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge and Medical Education Minister Dr Sharanaprakash Patil have defended the recent statement of All-India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge on the RSS.
Speaking to reporters in Kalaburagi on Thursday, Priyank, who is the son of Mallikarjun Kharge, said that if the RSS is a registered organisation, let it file a complaint on its official registered letterhead against the Congress chief.
Defending his father’s statement, Priyank said that the former had only asked “to kill poisonous snakes”. “What is wrong with it? Is it possible to give milk to a snake when it comes to bite you? They (BJP and RSS) call the Congress Urban Naxals and try to defame us,” Priyank said.
Priyank also accused PM Narendra Modi of handling foreign affairs badly. “It is because of this that we are facing a shortage of LPG and are facing the threat of a shortage of petrol and diesel,” he said.
Dr Sharanaprakash Patil said that Mallikarjun Kharge has not blamed anybody personally in his lifetime, and now also he has only asked to kill poisonous ideology.
Dr Patil said that calling a two-day special session of the Parliament from April 16 to 18 to discuss key amendments to the Women’s Reservation Act 2023 is a politically motivated step. “By doing so, BJP wants to attract the women voters of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala,” he said. Dr Sharanaprakash said that when the Bill was passed in the Parliament, the NDA government said that it would be implemented after delimitation of constituencies and after completion of the national census. “But now, it has hurriedly called for a special session to gain political mileage,” he said.
The medical education minister said that the government has requested the National Medical Commission (NMC) to give permission to start new government medical colleges at Bagalkot and Ramanagara this year.
He said that last year, Karnataka got an additional 400 under-graduate MBBS seats and 432 PG seats. This year we have applied for an additional 450 UG seats and also PG seats, he said.
Dr Sharanaprakash Patil, who is elected from Sedam, also reviewed water scarcity at Sedam and asked the officials to constantly monitor the water availability during summer. The concerned officials would be suspended if they show negligence in their duty, he warned.