BENGALURU: The BJP on Tuesday mocked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s longest-serving CM record, saying it’s not just about the number of days, but also records have been set in high corruption rates, zero development, more loans, and other issues.Under Siddaramaiah’s tenure, corruption is rampant, government schools are shutting down, assaults on women and farmer suicides are increasing, there is high unemployment, and there is appeasement politics, the Karnataka unit of the BJP posted on social media platform ‘X’.
“Your (Siddaramaiah’s) record is just the number of days as CM. But no achievement. Your (Siddaramaiah’s) Tughlaq administration has pushed Karnataka to bad days, which no Kannadiga will ever forget,” the BJP said, mentioning the alleged scams in MUDA land allotment and in the Valmiki Corporation.
BJP Rajya Sabha member Lahar Singh Siroya said there is a need for fact check. “Devaraj Urs was CM for continuous terms from March 1972 to January 1980. His term was not broken like Siddaramaiah’s... Siddaramaiah lost power in 2018 when Congress was defeated in the polls, and he himself had lost his Chamundeshwari seat in Mysuru. It was a saving grace that he had won by a thousand-odd votes in Badami, the other seat he had contested,” he said.
Singh also said even when it comes to Urs, he had long years in office because the 1976 elections were postponed by the then PM Indira Gandhi, who had imposed the Emergency and jailed all Opposition leaders. “For a couple of months at the beginning of 1978 there was President’s rule in Karnataka. But still, as CM, Urs had continuous terms.
Will Siddaramaiah, on the happy occasion of breaking Urs’ record, condemn the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi? Will he also condemn Indira Gandhi for her anti-democratic actions? Will he also condemn Indira Gandhi for dislodging Urs, the social justice champion who had actually given her a rebirth in politics? Urs died a sad man abandoned by all the congressmen who claim him today. Mallikarjun Kharge would know better about this,” he said. “I only wish Siddaramaiah and his followers were more modest about his non-achievement. His record does not sadly qualify for even the Limca Book of Records or the Guinness World Records,” he added.