‘Greatest injustice done by Congress Govt on Dalits’

Team Udayavani, Aug 5, 2023, 9:12 AM IST

Former Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai slammed the state government for ‘diverting’ Rs 11,000 crores the SC/ST sub-plans to implement the five guarantees.

Bommai said that this was the “greatest injustice done by Congress Govt on Dalits.” Bommai staged a demonstration against the Congress government for the misuse of Scheduled Castes Sub-Allocation & Tribal Sub-Allocation (SCP/TSP) funds in Bengaluru’s Freedom Park on Friday.

While addressing the media, BJP leader and former Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai alleged that Congress had diverted Rs 11,000 crore meant for the development of the SC/ST community to fulfil their (Congress) 5 promises in Karnataka. “It’s a disaster that almost Rs 11,000 crores have been diverted…This is a huge injustice done to SC/ST youth, women. This money would have gone to their house building, education…The development of the SC/ST community has been totally denied now. This is the greatest injustice done by Congress Govt on Dalits,” said Bommai.

BJP MPs representing the SC/ST communities also staged a demonstration in front of the Gandhi statue in the National capital on Friday to protest against the diversion of SC/ST funds by the Karnataka government to other departments. Earlier, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, the Karnataka Cabinet approved the diversion of money from the Rs 34,293-crore corpus of Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan and Tribal Sub-Plan (SCSP-TSP). Significantly, the SCSP-TSP mandates the government to spend 24.1 per cent of the total budget towards Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes’ welfare.

The newly-elected Karnataka government had earlier decided to use nearly Rs 11,000 crore from funds of the social welfare department to implement the five guarantees – Gruhalakshmi, Gruhajyoti, Yuvanidhi, Annabhagya and Shakti Yojana.

(With ANI inputs)