Karnataka chief minister (CM) B S Yediyurappa, who also holds the finance portfolio,wooed the two-most numerically powerful communities in the state, the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats, while presenting his seventh budget — and the first since coming back to power last year — for the state on Thursday.
The four-time CM appears to appease the Vokkaligas, who are traditionally Janata Dal (Secular) supporters and make up for 12-13% of Karnataka’s population. He announced that a 100-feet high bronze statue of Nadprabhu (Lord of the realm) Kempegowda would be erected at the international airport in Bengaluru. The airport is also named after Kempegowda, who is considered as the founder of modern Bengaluru.
The CM declared that the government would provide an assistance of Rs 20 crore for a 325-feet high bronze statue of Sri Jagajyothi Basveshwara, to be constructed on the premises of Murugha Mutt in Chitradurga. Basveshwara or Basvanna is the 12th century social reformer, who was also a philosopher, poet, statesman and a Lingayat saint. The budget also allotted ~500 crore for constructing ‘anubhava Mantapa’ (hall of spiritual experience) at Basva Kalyana. Yediyurappa himself belongs to the Lingayat community, who account for about 20% of Karnataka’s population and are known to be a support base for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Political analyst Manjunath put the allocations for statues for icons of these two communities in perspective. “It is not just the Vokkaligas and the Lingayats. There are numerous schemes named after various saints and prominent personalities from other caste groupings such as cobbler, potter etc in the state. Even, Christians have been allocated ~200 crore. Only Muslims, understandably, got token hand-outs such upgrade of Urdu schools, despite a separate budget for minorities’ welfare. The CM has been careful to provide for all sections of the society,” he said.
Earlier, Yediyurappa proposed to increase rate of tax on petrol from 32% to 35% and diesel from 21% to 24% in his bid to shore up resource mobilisation measures. Petrol and diesel will be dearer by ~1.60 and ~1.59 per litres, respectively, because of the hike in taxes. He has also raised excise duty on Indian-made liquor across 18 slabs by 6%. He estimated that the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) would grow by 6.8% in the current fiscal against 7.8% in 2018-19, attributing the decline primarily to the slowdown in agricultural sector due to drought as well as the devastation caused by floods over the last couple of years.
The CM finds himself in a tough spot as he has to find new resources, defend the Centre for slashing the state’s share in the 15th Finance Commission and give a boost to agriculture and industry amid a prolonged economic slowdown.
Opposition parties criticised the budget. “It is a continuation of the schemes, which were announced by our government. To make matters worse, Karnataka is not getting its due share from the Centre as admitted by the CM himself. This budget makes no one happy,” said ex-CM and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy. Congress leader and ex-CM Siddaramiah said, “This is a budget without direction. They have betrayed the voters. They have hiked the petrol and diesel prices and even tipplers haven’t been spared,” he said.
