Karnataka: Congress government passes orders to implement promised guarantees
The newly elected Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said that the first Cabinet meeting has issued orders for the implementation of five guarantees which were promised by the party before the elections.
The five ‘ main’ guarantees are 200 units of free power to all households (Gruha Jyoti); Rs 2,000 monthly assistance to the woman head of every family (Gruha Lakshmi); 10kg of rice free to every member of a BPL household (Anna Bhagya); Rs 3,000 every month for unemployed graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for unemployed diploma holders (both in the age group of 18-25) for two years (Yuva Nidhi) and free travel for women in public transport buses (Uchita Prayana).
Addressing a press briefing after the first Cabinet meeting in
Vidhan Soudha, here, Siddaramaiah said: “Five guarantees in the manifesto were promised and the order for the implementation of those five guarantees was given after the first cabinet meeting. All will be in force after the next cabinet meeting which will be called within a week.”
The Karnataka Legislative Assembly session is to be held on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, next week.
Also, hours after swearing-in as chief minister, Siddaramaiah lashed out at the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government saying that the government functioning before was useless.
“Government which was ruling earlier was useless. They couldn’t get us the share of taxes properly. The Centre has to give us Rs 5,495 crores as per the finance commission
recommendation.”
Earlier in the day, as many as eight Congress MLAS were
sworn in as ministers in the Karnataka Cabinet during the oathtaking ceremony in Bengaluru
on Saturday.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son Priyank
Kharge, party’s MLAS G Parameshwara and MB Patil were among the eight MLAS.
The other MLAS who took oath included K H Muniyappa, K J George, Satish Jarkiholi, Ramalinga Reddy and B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan.
Top brass of the Congress party including the Gandhi family members Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, party’s national president Mallikarjun Kharge were present on the occasion. The Chief Ministers of the Congress-ruled states including Himachal CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel attended the event.
The party had also sent an invitation to numerous opposition parties and their leaders.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Deputy Tejashwi Yadav, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq Abdullah were also present during the swearing-in ceremony.
Other opposition leaders who were present included Sharad Pawar, and actor and Makkal Needhi Maiam chief Kamal Haasan.
Ahead of the ceremony, Rahul Gandhi, Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah were seen holding each other’s hands in the air as a show of strength and unity.
Congress bagged 135 seats in the May 10 elections to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly ousting the ruling BJP, which got 66 seats while the Janata Dal (Secular) secured 19 seats in the results declared on May 13.