Siddaramaiah slams BJP, JD(S) for disrupting budget presentation with slogans and walkout

PTI, Feb 16, 2024, 7:47 PM IST

Source: PTI / File

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday hit out at the opposition BJP and the JD(S) for their ”enilla enilla” chorus mocking the budget as having ”nothing” and for staging a walk out of the assembly.

The BJP legislators walked out of the assembly singing in chorus ‘Enilla enilla, Siddaramaiahana Budgetinalli Enilla’ (There is nothing, there is nothing, Siddaramaiah’s budget has nothing). They termed the budget as regressive and said it could push the state behind by 20 years.

The chief minister, who holds the finance portfolio, said Karnataka has never had a precedent of the opposition boycotting the budget.

”There is no example of a walkout during budget… Rs 3.71 lakh crore budget was tabled but still they (BJP) say ‘enilla enilla’. That means they have ‘nothing’ in their head,” Siddaramaiah said during a media interaction after the budget presentation.

The chief minister said the BJP leaders don’t believe in democracy and the constitutional system, and that they have gone politically blank. They are seeing the budget with a jaundiced eye, he claimed.

He alleged that the BJP legislators came with a plan to oppose the budget.

”I don’t say they should not do politics but political comments should be healthy. They comment just for the sake of commenting. They came with a plan not to listen to the budget. I narrated the present condition of the state which they could not digest. They can’t face the truth,” Siddaramaiah said.

He slammed the BJP MPs for not speaking before Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman about the injustice to Karnataka in the allocation of funds.

Siddaramaiah said the state incurred a loss of Rs 35,000 crore in food production due to acute drought affecting 226 out of 236 Taluks. He explained that the state government sought Rs 18,171 crore as per NDRF norms but the Centre did not give ”even a rupee”.

”We asked the Centre to release the funds. It is the tax money collected from Karnataka. It is not the Centre’s money. But till today even after five months of drought, not even a rupee has been released,” the chief minister said.

According to him, the 15th finance commission had recommended Rs 5,495 crore to Karnataka along with Rs 6,000 for development of Bengaluru. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced Rs 5,300 crore for the Upper Bhadra project in 2023-24 as well. He added that he had asked the then BJP chief ministers B S Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai to claim it from the Centre. Instead of asking PM Modi and Sitharaman, they got angry with him, he said.