BJP plans to hold a huge rally in Karnataka’s Belagavi districts in supoort of the agitating farmers to build pressure on the Congress-Janata Dal(Secular) government.
BJP chief of Karnataka, BS Yeddyurappa announced, “We are holding protests throughout the state, almost at all district and taluk headquarters, today. We will hold a very big rally, one with over one lakh people, at the time of the assembly session in Belagavi on December 10.”
CM Kumaraswamy rejected BJP’s criticism on the issue by saying, “There was a BJP core committee meeting on the issue, as if a big revolution was going on. Yeddyurappa, are you giving advice to Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy, Revanna?”
He also questioned the BJP leader’s right to question the governance, given his own performance as CM. He said,”I have not said that I will be the chief minister for 15-20 years; this is an opportunity given by God. He further questioned eddyurappa, “You say I only have 38 MLAs. Even when you approached me in 2006, I only had 38 MLAs. Why give it a political colour?”
CM also mocked Yeddyurappa’s support to the agitation, stating that he “has woken up to farmer issues” only now.
Farmers in Karnataka have hit the streets in large numbers demanding a minimum support price for their crop and loan waivers promised by the present government. After storming the Suvarna Soudha — the legislature building in Belagavi — on November 18, they marched to state capital Bengaluru the next day.
Kumaraswamy promised the farmer representatives to sort out most of the issues including helping them clear a backlog of dues from sugarcane factories.