The Congress party sought to mount pressure on the State Government to arrest senior BJP leader K.S. Eshwarappa, whose name has been linked to the death of contractor Santosh Patil.
Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who addressed a protest meeting organised by the Congress in Mysuru on Wednesday, said the State Government should immediately arrest Mr. Eshwarappa, who has resigned as the Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj after he was booked for abetting Santosh Patil’s suicide.
He also demanded that Mr. Eshwarappa be booked for demanding a bribe under the Prevention of Corruption Act. He took serious exception to lodging an FIR against the BJP leader only for abetting suicide and not booking him for corruption.
The contractor, in a “death note”, had blamed Mr Eshwarappa for ending his life. The contractor had accused the BJP leader of demanding a bribe for clearing his bills worth ₹ 4 crore for the work he had executed after raising loans and selling his wife’s jewellery.
He called upon the people of the State to remove the “corrupt” BJP Government, which demands 40 per cent commission for clearing bills of Government work.
During his speech at the protest meeting, Mr. Siddaramaiah trained his guns on the BJP Government at the Centre and wondered whether the “Achhe Din” promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was about the skyrocketing prices of petrol, diesel, cooking gas and fertilizers.
He drew a comparison with the prices of fuel and cooking gas that were prevailing during the tenure of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and accused the BJP Government of failing to control the prices under its regime.
He said Mr. Modi had also failed to deliver on its promise of creating 2 crore jobs a year before he took over as Prime Minister eight years ago. India was facing a very high rate of unemployment among the youth and the Government’s reply to the educated youth demanding jobs was to “sell pakodas”, he lamented.
He accused the BJP Government of covering up its failures by spreading the venom of communalism among the people. He pointed out that RSS, which was the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, did not struggle for India’s freedom.
“It was only the Congress party that struggled for India’s freedom”, he said while taking exception to the attempts made by the RSS and BJP to teach patriotism to Congress.
After the protest, Mr. Siddaramaiah, accompanied by a host of leaders including Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) Working President R. Dhruvanarayan, former Ministers H.C. Mahadevappa, Tanveer Sait and Narendra Swamy, besides legislators Yathindra, Anil Chikkamadu and Thimmaiah went on a padayatra from Gandhi Square to the Deputy Commissioner’s office through K.R. Circle and D. Devaraj Urs Road to submit a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner’s office.
