Bharatiya Janata Party floor leader Jagadish Shettar demanded the state government to come out with a white paper on the State’s financial position in the last 10 years to have clarity on the issue.
Participating in a debate on revised budget for the year 2013-14 in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, he said time and again Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has been alleging that the previous BJP government totally ‘mishandled’ the finances and emptied the state’s treasury. But the CM has not substantiated his argument in the revised budget presented last week. It is creating a wrong impression in the minds of the common people, he said.
“Let Siddaramaiah come out with a white paper on the state’s financial position for last 10 years so all can know the truth,” he demanded.
Shettar took the government to task for its statement that the BJP government had given around Rs 650 crore to various mutts and religious institutions in the last five years.
He said the present Congress government too has earmarked Rs 75 crore in the budget as grants towards religious institutions to be given to mutts, if they approach the government.
The previous government released funds to all religious institutions in recognition of their services to society. The Congress government is free to reveal the details of the funds that the previous government provided to religious institutions. But it is wrong to say that the government favoured a particular community, he said.
Shettar charged that the government did not have a political will to declare 43 new taluks which are announced by the BJP government as the credit would go to the BJP. “If the government thinks that the previous government had included an additional four to five taluks, let it remove them and take steps to create rest of the taluks as suggested by four committees,” he said.
The previous government mooted the idea of creating new taluks as most of the existing taluks are big and are unable to manage.
“The Congress is looking at the issue with a political angle instead of viewing it from the point of decentralisation of power. People of those taluks would teach a lesson to the party in the coming days,” he claimed.