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Prathima Nandakumar
Prathima Nandakumar

Roundup

K'taka roundup: BJP, Cong flash report cards, Ramya's new role and more

PTI3_18_2016_000035B (File photo) Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah

A day after the Karnataka BJP released a “chargesheet” against the Congress government, listing down its “failures”, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah dismissed the charges, calling it “bundle of lies” and “baseless allegations”.

On Thursday, BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa and leader of the opposition Jagadish Shettar had released a 63-page 'chargesheet', listing the failures of the state government in various sectors and alleged that Siddaramaiah had failed to deliver good governance.

Hitting back at Yeddyurappa, who accused the government of being the most corrupt in the country citing an NGO report, Siddaramaiah asked, “What moral right does Yeddyurappa have to talk on corruption? He has had police chargesheet him in various cases and he is out on bail. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others.”

The chief minister, who released a booklet on the achievement of his government in the last four years, countered the allegations levelled by the BJP saying, “BJP is misleading the public by repeating a lie several times. Yeddyurappa's allegations that Karnataka is the most corrupt is not true. The national crime records bureau statistics of 2015-16 indicate that Karnataka accounts for 4.7 per cent of all criminal cases booked in the country, which is much less compared with BJP-ruled states like MP (9.1 per cent), Maharashtra (9.3 per cent), Rajasthan (6.7 per cent) and several others like Tamil Nadu (6.4 per cent), UP (8.2 per cent), West Bengal (6.1 per cent) and Bihar(6 per cent).”

“BJP is desperate after its bypoll debacle as they had proclaimed the bypoll result would be a referendum. I did not badmouth them even once during the election campaign, but sought votes on account of the good work done by my government. The result is for anyone to see,” said Siddaramaiah.

Interestingly, Siddaramaiah, who had declared that he would lead the party to power in the 2018 polls and become the chief minister once again, took a U-turn on the issue. “Choosing the next CM is the prerogative of the legislators, and the high command needs to approve the choice as well. My immediate focus is to ensure victory of my party,” he said.

Ramya to take on Saffron social media warriors

Actor-turned-politician Ramya (Divya Spandana) is the All India Congress Committee's choice for leading the party's social media campaign, even as Karnataka – the last bastion of the Congress—is gearing up for the 2018 assembly polls.

Ramya (34), a former MP from Mandya replaces Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda and will head the 20-member social media team that runs the official website of the Indian National Congress— www.inc.in and the Twitter handle @INCIndia.

Ramya is one of the leaders who extensively uses the social media to connect with her fans and followers and has courted controversies with her tweets. One of her tweets—“Pak is not a hell”—had triggered a controversy. A sedition case filed against her on this count was quashed by a Madikeri court recently.

The actor-turned-politician has 483k followers on Twitter and she has so far tweeted as many as 16.7k times. She has made an impact on Facebook after she toured her former constituency to compile videos of drought-hit families, and also to document the impact of demonetisation on the lives of the common man.

Kumaraswamy biopic

If JD(S) patriarch H.D. Deve Gowda was nicknamed Mannina Maga (son of the soil) for espousing the cause of farmers, his son and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy will soon be known as Bhumi Putra (son of the land).

Even as the JD(S) is gearing up for the 2018 assembly polls, pinning its hopes on emerging as the kingmaker, one of Kumaraswamy's fans have come up with a novel idea of making a biopic on the leader, focusing on Kumaraswamy's tenure as the chief minister for 20 months in 2007.

Bhumi Putra, a biopic to be produced by one Prabhu, will have Arjun Sarja in the lead role and will be directed by veteran film director S. Narayan.

CM braces to fight bad publicity with 'Varuna'

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah entered the election year with a bang by inaugurating a state-of-the-art studio at his home office 'Krishna'. The studio named 'Varuna' has backdrops, teleprompters and recording equipment to facilitate interviews to the television channels. However the name 'Varuna' sure rings a bell, as it is also the name of Siddaramaiah's assembly constituency in Mysuru.

For a state battling consecutive drought years, the studio has been aptly named after the rain god. “The centre has been named after the rain god in the hope that the state gets good rains,” clarified the CM.

Karnataka not keen on expert panel on Cauvery

The Karnataka government is most likely to reject the Centre's offer to form an expert panel to deal with the Cauvery water dispute.

Senior advocate Fali S. Nariman, who is handling the state's inter-state water disputes, has warned the state government against accepting the offer as the hearing on the state's application against the final order of the Cauvery Water Disputes' Tribunal is coming up before the Supreme Court in July.

The Ministry of Water Resources has proposed setting up of a group of experts to deal with the Cauvery dispute and sought the opinion of riparian states. The terms of reference of the group include recommending a framework for collection and dissemination of water data in the river basin and estimating the water availability each season, making suggestions on equitable distribution of water among basin states during a distress year and identifying the key reasons for the long-drawn water dispute.  

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Topics : #Karnataka

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