Karwar: Lashing out at the state Congress government, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council K S Eshwarappa said that the Chief Minister Siddaramaiah claims his government is poor and he has achieved a lot in eradicating poverty, but the ground reality is different.

Eshwarappa told reporters here on 16th August, Wednesday, that Siddaramaiah, instead of playing politics with Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities, should address ‘real problems’ of the public as they were in great distress due to indecisiveness of the government. “Let the chief minister visit Uttara Kannada and understand problems of people first,” he asked. Under Vidya Siri scheme, he pointed out that nearly 9,200 students from the district have enrolled and the government should have released Rs 1.38 crore per month for the scheme, but the district so far got only Rs 32 lakh.

“Even meritorious students were assured of laptops, but till date no tender has been invited for the purchase of laptops,” he alleged. He demanded the resignation of Energy Minister D K Shivakumar whose residences were raided by Income Tax officials recently. “Until the IT Department gives him (Shivakumar) a clean chit, he should be kept out of the cabinet,” he added.

‘Rama-Laxmana’

When asked about differences between him and state BJP president B S Yedduurappa, he said: “The BJP is a disciplined party. We are all united. There are no differences between any leader. Yeddurappa and I are like Rama-Laxmana.” “We are all going together to bring back the party to power and national president Amit Shah has asked us to put a united fight against the Congress,” he added.

Taking serious objection to spending a huge sum of money for advertising Indira Canteens, the BJP leader said the government was feeding only a few hundred people in Bengaluru with the project. “The government should have started the facility across the state as done by the Tamil Nadu government,” he added.