Siddaramaiah slams government on flood relief

BENGALURU: A day after being named as the leader of the opposition, former chief minister Siddarmaiah stormed the opening day of the winter session of the Karnataka assembly on Thursday. He slammed the ruling BJP for its failure to take up flood relief work.

As expected, the opposition party used the opportunity to hold the government to account on the issue of flood relief. Siddaramaiah blamed the Central government for being unfair to Karnataka. “The state has incurred a loss of Rs 38,000 crore. Yet the Centre has released only Rs 1,200 crore which is nowhere sufficient to handle flood damage,” he said.

Although the state government had said that the three-day session will primarily focus on discussion on the budget and its passage, the same could not be materialised as the opposition Congress picked a debate on flood issue. Opposition leaders also demanded to extend the session by a few more days to extend the discussion on important issues including flood. Speaker, Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri, however, declined their request and stayed firm that the session will be closed on Saturday.