Winning farmer over, Bengaluru not forgotten

Bengaluru/Hubballi: In a clear move to tap agrarian distress and undercut the Congress voter base in the arid north as well as in the sugar belt in the South, the BJP’s manifesto for the Karnataka Assembly polls released on Friday promised an allocation of Rs 1.5 lakh crore for irrigation projects and waiver of farm loan up to Rs one lakh borrowed from nationalised and cooperative banks even as Congress president Rahul Gandhi dismissed the document as “a poorly crafted fantasy built around a weak plot”.

The BJP manifesto, unveiled by BJP state unit president and the party’s chief ministerial candidate B.S. Yeddyurappa was raining freebies, offering free laptops for college students, free smart phones for women from BPL families, an anti-corruption helpline in chief minister’s office and 300 new ‘Annapoorna Canteens’ for affordable meals were also offered. 

The manifesto’s special focus on farmers was evident from a proposal to launch a Rs 5,000 crore “Raitha Bandhu Market Inter vention Fund” to cushion farmers against the effects of price fluctuations. 

The saffron party also offered foreign study tours to farmers to Israel and China to study agricultural practices. 

The BJP also sought to send a strong anti-corruption message through its polls promise of enacting a Karnataka Whistleblower Act to protect those exposing corruption. 

The party also promised to release a white paper on the financial health of the state under the Congress rule.

For women voters, the BJP has offered a "Vivaha Mangala" scheme under which Rs 25,000 and 3 gm of gold will be gifted to brides of families living below poverty line (BPL). The party also promised sanitary napkins for BPL women at Rs 1 under the "Stree Suvidha" scheme.

A "Go Seva Ayog" aimed at cow protection would also be revived, the party said.

BJP MP and state leader Shobha Karandlaje said that the manifesto was prepared after consulting over three lakh people.

The Congress manifesto for the Karnataka Assembly polls, released on April 27, had promised to create one crore jobs and spend '1.25 lakh crore on irrigation over the next five years if re-elected to power. The party promised to make Karnataka malnutrition-free and vowed to create of 15-20 lakh jobs every year. It also offered free sanitary napkins for girl students in government colleges and shared a vision for promoting the IT sector and offer subsidy to start-ups.