Politicking at literary meet? Never'

Mysuru: Dismissing allegations made by BJP leaders that the 83rd Kannada Sahithya Sammelana, which concluded in Mysuru on Sunday, was used to further the interests of the Congress party, Chief Minister Siddariamaiah said, "We do not have  the necessity to use literateurs for our benefit, we won't do that."  

He was answering a question by mediapersons on his arrival at Mysuru airport before heading to attend his brother's son's wedding in his native Siddaramanahundi. 

The CM said, "Mr Chandrashekar Patil (Sahitya Sammelana president)  had asked people to vote for a party which believes in secularism. If BJP leaders oppose it, does that mean they do not believe in secularism? Why are they are they giving a political colour to it? Politicians must use parliamentary language, they should not use words  not befitting of human dignity," he said. 

On complaints that the  Mysuru royal family was not invited for the Sammelana, he said, "the Kannada Sahithya parishat held it and we only gave them money."  
When asked about his defence of minister  Vinay Kulkarni who has been accused of trying to influence the murder case of BJP worker Yogish Gouda, the CM said, "His name is not mentioned in the FIR. He has no connection with the allegations made against him.  There is no document , the audio-video is a lie," he said. 

Asked if the Hublot watch given to him by his friend Dr Verma, who works for the group of NRI Mr B R Shetty, was a bribe for getting the Mou to build a private hospital in a government hospital premises in Udupi, he denied this and said, "Should Dr Verma not work in BR Shetty's group? The fact is Mr Shetty is only building a government hospital in that land to serve the poor," he said. 

To a question on Prime Minister  Modi's statement in Hyderabad that they were giving equal importance to all states, he said, "In a federal system, all states have to be developed because, of the resource generated as central taxes from each state, the Centre gives  only  42 percent to the state according to recommendations of the 14th finance commission.  

Our state and Rajasthan have a large proportion of dry land and they have to give more calamity funds to us in view of this. But they(the Centre) discriminates against us, we get a calamity fund of  only Rs 1550 Crore while Gujarat on the other hand gets over 4500 crore and Maharashtra gets as high as Rs 8500 crore," he said.