2018 Assembly polls will be fought under my leadership: Siddaramaiah

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that the Karnataka Legislative Assembly elections in 2018 will be fought under his leadership and he is confident of the party returning to power. Listing out various achievements of the Congress government, which completed four years on Friday, the Chief Minister said the party would return to power with a majority of seats in the next year’s elections. However, the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) will decide the next Chief Minister and party high command would approve it. “My government is inclusive one,” and several subsidised schemes were implemented for the welfare of the people belonging to all sections of the communities. On the “chargesheet” on the failures of the government released by the BJP, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the chargesheet was totally baseless and false. The BJP has no moral right to release the chargesheet when the cases against former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurppa and other leaders were pending in the Supreme Court and the Karnataka Lokayukta. Referring to the BJP’s demand to waiver crop loans, he said the State government was ready to waive loans borrowed by the farmers if the Centre agreed to waive loans borrowed from nationalised banks. Mr. Yeddyurappa, who was member of the Lok Sabha for the past three years, had not spoken once in the House demanding the Modi government to waive crop loans, he said. The Chief Minister questioned the credibility of the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) report, which ranked Karnataka number one in terms of corruption. The report was prepared by surveying only 2000 people in the State, which has 6.5 crore population, he said.