BJP wants no populist schemes in Karnataka budget

BENGALURU: The BJP’s Karnataka unit has asked the state election commission to restrain the Congress government from making any populist announcements or schemes in the upcoming budget on March 15 on the grounds that it will influence the by-elections to the Nanjangud and Gundlupet assembly seats on April 9.

“We are not asking for postponement of the budget, as we are aware that it has to be passed before the financial year end of March 31,” BJP state spokesperson and MLA S Suresh Kumar told ET. “We have said that there should be no announcements or schemes that could influence the voters in the byelections.”

The upcoming state budget is expected to be chock-full of populist schemes as chief minister Siddaramaiah, also the finance minister, is on a mission to shore up his image and that of the Congress party. The state will go for elections in May 2018 and this is to be his last full-fledged budget before it, as the next one, just ahead of polls, is likely to be the traditional vote-on-account.

Kumar contented that Siddaramaiah hails from the region where the by-elections are being held. “The by-poll to at least the seat of Nanjangud has become a matter of prestige. His budget should not influence that,” he said.

The BJP move comes as an exact counter of what the complaint filed by the Congress and other opposition parties, ahead of the Union budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley on February 1. The Congress and others had asked the Election Commission to postpone the presentation of the budget till the election process in Uttar Pradesh and four other states got completed.

The example of the then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee presenting a vote-on-account in 2012, ahead of the previous round of state assembly elections to these states was cited. The EC, however, allowed Jaitley to present a full-fledged budget which had nation-wide schemes, but nothing specific to the election-bound states.