Shettar may raise need for President’s Rule as governance comes to a standstill

Governance in the State has been completely neglected due to infighting in the Congress, BJP MP Jagadish Shettar said in Belagavi on Friday.

He said that he will favour imposition of President’s Rule in Karnataka if the confusion over power sharing in the Congress is not resolved in three days.

“I feel that the Governor should send a report to the President and seek imposition of President’s Rule,” he told reporters.

“However, if the government were to fall, the BJP will not try to come to power through any ‘Operation Congress’,” he clarified.

“There is no governance and no Minister is serious about development. It is as if the government is a cadaver in Karnataka. All the development programmes, whether Centrally sponsored or State sponsored, are on the backburner as all elected representatives are busy in party politics,” he said.

He said that several schemes are stuck as the State government has failed in releasing money or starting works.

He denied the allegation by some Ministers that the Centre is responsible for delay in starting procurement centres for maize and pulses.

“The Centre has fixed the minimum support prices for the market intervention schemes for these crops. It is for the State to start procurement using its corpus funds. But I do no think the State government has any corpus fund left, as it has spent all the money on guarantee schemes,” he said.

According to the MP, the Belagavi-Kittur-Dharwad railway line, Saundatti Yallamma temple development, the solid waste management centre under the Smart Cities project, water treatment plant in Halaga, the lake and parks development and other schemes, all in Belagavi district, are stuck as the State government has not acted in time.