Karnataka Congress Preps For General Elections

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's celebrations after the Budget 2024-25 presentation last week, were marred by protests from angry farmers. With an eye on the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls, the Karnataka government has gone to town highlighting its determination to continue with its ‘guarantees’ as evidenced by the budget allocation of Rs 52,000 crore for the purpose, the farmers were just not amused.

Unaffected by Siddaramaiah’s claim about welfare measures, the farmers kicked off their agitation against “the government’s failure to provide any drought relief in the budget”. The protests were organised in the 236 taluks under the aegis of the Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha (KPRS) and Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS).

The farmers are also disturbed by the Centre’s failure to release drought relief from the National Disaster Response Fund. Notably, the state suffered a crop loss in about 42 lakh hectares during the six months of the kharif season.

This had followed a poor monsoon that affected farm and horticultural crops. Consequently, the farmers were not able to sow major crops. The state had even declared 195 of the 236 taluks as drought hit. The protest assumes importance as it coincides with the agitation being carried out by farmers in Punjab and Haryana ,seeking a guaranteed Minimum Support Price for 23 crops from the Centre.

According to KPRS president, Bayya Reddy, Siddaramaiah’s budget has “totally forgotten about the farmers’ plight, even as the Union government remained indifferent”. The farmers have been demanding Rs 25000 per hectare as compensation for crop loss.

Karnataka agriculture minister, N. Chaluvarayaswamy, on his part, appeared confident of helping the drought-hit farmers. He assured them that the government would seek to add to the Rs 2000 each that it had given earlier as compensation to 32 lakh farmers, as part of the first instalment. The farmers, of course, remain upset with the state government for not announcing any crop loan waiver in its budget.

Their anger apart, the Budget has reportedly been welcomed by the people at large as it seeks to ensure continuation of the five guarantees that the Congress had promised before the Assembly polls. Not surprisingly, the Chief Minister took pains to emphasise in his Budget speech that the guarantees had helped the beneficiary families to get about Rs 50,000 worth of facilities a year.

On assuming office last year, the Siddaramaiah government had introduced these benefits to promote “social justice while seeking to reduce wealth inequality”. The schemes included free bus rides for women, financial assistance to women heads of households, unemployment allowance for graduates, free electricity to a section of the population and the provision of rice.

The government had explained that the idea behind the promised assurances like the Shakti, Gruha Lakshmi, Yuva Nidhi, Gruha Jyothi and Anna Bhagya, was to reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots. The government said that it believed in the premise that “development is the real freedom.”

The success of facilities like Shakti, for example, they said, was indicated by the fact that women had availed 155 crore free bus rides since its inception. The CM told his constituents in Mysore this week that the provision of rice under the Anna Bhagya scheme was continuing “despite the Central government’s non-cooperation.” Interestingly, the Shakti scheme also resulted in women devotees thronging religious places such as Dharmasthala, Kukke Subramanya, Sringeri and Udupi.

Siddaramaiah, however, does not view the guarantees as election gimmicks, but sees them as measures that were “drawn up carefully following the feedback received after the Bharat Jodo Yatra by Congress leader, Rahul Gandhi”. The CM was equally quick to reiterate that his government is determined to pursue social security and welfare programmes in general for the people, indicated by the budgetary allocation of Rs 1,20,373 Crores.

While affirming its commitment to its welfare plans the government has maintained that the common man was reeling under inflation, coupled with growing unemployment. Therefore, its argument that the positive impact of the “freebies,” as the guarantees have been termed, would become pronounced over time. This would lead to more consumption, prompting additional investment in the state by the corporate sector.

The critics, however, have not taken kindly to the government’s decision to surpass the Rs 1 lakh crore borrowing threshold “for fulfilling its electoral promises made before the assembly polls of last year.” The government, on its part, claims that the borrowing was necessary for ensuring the state’s development besides which its debt remained within the permissible limits ,underlined by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2002.

Overall, the budget projected a revenue deficit of Rs 27,353 crore while relying on borrowings to sustain the guarantees. Significantly, the cover page of the state’s Budget also featured the Preamble of the Constitution, underlining the ruling party’s emphasis on following it in letter and spirit.

The Rs 3.7 lakh crore Budget 2024-25, follows expectation of a robust growth with the Gross State Domestic Product being projected at over Rs 28 lakh crore.

The CM said that the government had maintained “fiscal prudence”, and at the same time, Siddaramaiah criticised the Centre for its alleged discrimination against Karnataka in terms of devolution of funds. “The state is getting just Rs 13 paise in return for every Rs 1 paid as tax to the Centre,” the CM said.

“Unfortunately, despite the injustice meted out to the state, none of the 25 Karnataka BJP MPs has uttered a word. They have betrayed the state, he added. According to the CM Karnataka had also suffered on account of “unscientific implementation of GST by the Centre”. The BJP, retorted claiming that the state had received more funds under the Modi government when compared to the UPA administration.

The Opposition was also quick to slam the government for “ its alleged largesse to the minorities,” particularly, the Rs 100 crore earmarked for the development of wakf properties with another Rs 200 crore for the Christian community.What the critics ,perhaps, overlooked was that Siddaramaiah has also provided Rs 100 crore to develop the Anjanadri Hills ,better known as the birthplace of “ Lord Hanuman,” .

Irrespective of the Opposition’s criticism, the fact remains that Siddaramaiah has cleverly sought to woo the voters, particularly women, with the five guarantees. This is something which the Congress central leadership and the state unit of the party would only be too happy about.

More so as the CM believes that the party’s development programmes would help it in bagging 20 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats. In 2019, the Congress just managed to win one seat, the BJP won 25, the JDS won one, and another seat was won by an Independent candidate.