Dharam dubs K'taka budget as 'BJP agenda, anti-people'

Bangalore, Mar 28 (UNI) Describing the Karnataka budget for 2007-08 as ''BJP agenda and anti-people'', Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly N Dharam Singh today criticised that it lacked action plans and political will for implementation of the proposals.

Taking part in a discussion on the budget proposals, he said the budget, presented by Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister B S Yediyurappa, was a BJP budget and not that of the JD(S)-BJP coalition Government. It did not provide any direction to speed up development works in the State, he alleged.

''The BJP will not succeed in realising its dream of building its party by presenting such budgets with an eye on the vote bank in the State, which is a strong Congress base,'' he said.

Ridiculing that the budget was full of promises only, Mr Singh said it did not mention how it would mobilise resources for the monetary loss following the ban on arrack sale and lottery.

He said Mr Yediyurappa had made less allocations for core sectors like irrigation, power and agriculture in comparision to the past years. Besides, it had no plan to take up any programme for power generation.

Mr Singh said the coalition Government lacked commitment towards social sector like housing and releasing subsidy of Rs 25 crore to SC/ST students.

He wanted to know what happened to the drinking water project for Bangalore, taken up by his erstwhile Government with the help of Japan.

Mr J C Madhuswamy of the JD (U) also expressed concern on the budget ignoring the core sectors.

UNI