Five main issues in Congress arsenal ahead of budget session in Karnataka

Bengaluru: A stormy budget session awaits Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa with the opposition set to haul his government over the coals on several issues.

The joint session of legislature will commence on Monday and last till Friday, February 21. Subsequently, the budget session will commence on March 2 with Yediyurappa scheduled to table the budget on March 5.

Anticipating an opposition assault, the ruling party has instructed its MLAs to be alert to blunt the opposition attack.

The opposition is likely to concentrate its fire on four issues on which the government is seen to be vulnerable.

1.   Anti-CAA protests and Mangaluru police firing

Two persons died when police opened fire on people protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Mangaluru in December. Further the government’s ban on anti-CAA protests is likely to draw much of the fire from the opposition.

Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy is likely to join hands with the Congress on the Mangaluru firing issue as he had released video clippings of police high handedness before the killing of two youth in the firing.

2.   The Shaheen School sedition case

The opposition is likely to make a meal of the government’s embarrassment over the sedition case filed against the headmistress, a parent and two children of the Shaheen Primary School in Bidar for staging a play that allegedly made improper remarks against narendra Modi.

3.   And why no similar action against school that enacted Babri drama?

The Sri Rama Vidyakendra High School in Kalladka, run by RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakara Bhat, made its students enact the demolition of Babri Masjid and construction of a Ram temple in its place. Why was no action taken against the school similar to what was done in the Bidar case?

4.   Why appoint mining baron as forest minister?

The chief minister has given the forest portfolio to an MLA, Anand Singh, who has been implicated in cases of illegal mining in reserve forest areas. The government defence? Anand Singh claims to have been discharged from one illegal mining case, registered against him on the basis of a Lokayukta report.

5.   Plus, other core issues

Lack of basic infrastructures in flood-affected districts of north Karnataka, marginal decrease in devolution to state by the 15^th Finance Commission are the other issues in the opposition’s arsenal.