Member of Legislative Assembly Arvind Bellad, who is leading the BJP team visiting drought-hit areas in Yadgir district, has said that the State government has completely failed in tackling the drought situation in the district.
Addressing a press conference in Yadgir on Friday, after visiting drought-hit Balichakra and Ramasamudra villages, Mr. Bellad said that the BJP has waited for long for the government to act to address drought.
However, as the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government has failed to tackle drought properly, the BJP members have been forced to visit drought-hit areas to assess the ground realities and report it to the party.
At present, eight teams of the party are visiting various districts of the State and they will submit a comprehensive report after the conclusion of the study visits, he said.
“There is severe drought. A majority of farmers who spent approximately ₹60,000 per acre for agriculture activities, including sowing, are eagerly waiting for compensation. But, the State government has just released ₹9 crore for the district. Considering this hard situation, the State government should immediately release compensation to the affected farmers without waiting for Central drought relief as it [the Union government] will do whatever is needed to be done for the State,” he said.
Lambasting the Ministers and Congress MLAs for getting offices and bungalows repaired by spending crores of rupees when the State is reeling under severe drought, he said that the government has gone into sleeping mode and the Chief Minister and his Ministers are busy in transfers of officials.
Meanwhile, Mr. Bellad welcomed the High Court decision directing the State government to engage an independent agency to conduct fresh examinations to recruit police sub-inspectors.
When asked about the delay in appointing the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, he replied that all 66 MLAs of the party are like Opposition leaders.
Mr. Bellad, however, declined to comment on the former Chief Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda’s announcement to retire from electoral politics.
Member of Parliament Raja Amareshwar Naik, the former MLA Narasimha Naik, Veerbasant Reddy Mudnal, H.C. Patil, Suresh Sajjan and others were present.
