Bangalore: Former Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa and his supporters have been detained by the Bangalore Police, as they marched to the governor's residence on Wednesday demanding the current BJP government in the state be sacked. Yeddyurappa has floated a new party, the Karnataka Janata Party, ahead of state elections that are due in the first quarter of 2013.
The ex-BJP leader has increased pressure against the BJP saying his party would take a call on January 4, on whether the Jagadish Shettar-headed ministry should continue in office or not. Addressing a meeting at Freedom Park before proceeding on a "Vidhan Soudha chalo" protest, Yeddyurappa, who quit BJP nearly a month ago, said the BJP government has lost its majority and has no moral right to continue in office.
"We will tell the Governor the government does not have support of (majority of) MLAs. It has lost majority", he said. Yeddyurappa, key leaders of KJP and workers were not allowed to proceed to Vidhan Soudha, the State Secretariat, to lay siege to it and were stopped some distance away.
As many as 14 BJP MLAs associated themselves at a rally early December in Haveri, where Yeddyurappa formally launched KJP. Some 10 ministers had a breakfast meeting with him that day but chose not to attend that rally.
At the meeting on Wednesday at Freedom Park, Yeddyurappa launched a frontal attack on the Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, slamming him as "shameless", in deep slumber like Kumbakarna", and "sticking to his chair". He alleged that the BJP government betrayed poor sections of the society in the last one year and two months -- after he had resigned as Chief Minister -- by stopping monthly social security pensions to the elderly, widow and physically handicapped under the wrong pretext of rechecking and reviewing the beneficiaries list.
"After I demitted office, monthly pensions have been stopped to 10 lakh beneficiaries (social security pensions)", he alleged, adding, the Government has neglected the "Bhagyalakshmi" scheme under which Rs 20,000 is deposited in the name of newly born girl child in the BPL families so that she gets Rs one lakh-plus when she attains the age of 18.
(With Additional Inputs From PTI)
Comments
0 comment