Drought: B S Yeddyurappa threatens stir

Kalaburagi: Accusing the Kumaraswamy  government of being unresponsive to the problems of the farmers of 13 districts  reeling under a drought and dithering on its pre-poll promise of waiving off  crop loans, state BJP president, B S Yeddyurappa warned on Thursday that his party would launch an agitation against it if it did not come to their rescue over the next 10  days.

 “When we started attacking this government mainly on the loan waiver issue, many people , including the media, advised us to give it at least a month to act. Now as 20 days have gone by, we will wait for ten days more and after that play the role of a responsible opposition party,” he said. Claiming that despite the drinking water crisis in the 13 districts, no funds had been released to provide it and no official team had visited the area to assess the situation, the BJP leader charged that all development work had come to a standstill in these parts after the formation of the new coalition government. 

 “There is total confusion on the farm loan issue. The Chief Minister has failed to set the apprehensions of the bankers to rest  and the promise to form a Cabinet sub-committee has not been fulfilled so far,” he regretted. When his attention was drawn to the reported tweet by Chief Minister Kumaraswamy that he had not planted a “money tree” to instantly waive off farm loans, Mr Yediyurappa retorted “it was he who made the promise. We are only asking him to keep it.”

Mr Yeddyurappa denied that he was in touch with JDS MLAs to woo them to join his party. “We are 104 in number and have no intention to add to it,” he said. Refusing to react to Water Resources Minister, D K Shivakuamar’s claim that some BJP MLAs were in touch with him to join the Congress party, he shot back angrily,” let him say whatever he wants.”