Sonia Gandhi in Karnataka says BJP and allies destroyed secular fabric of the state

Congress President and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi alleged in Mangalore on Thursday that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies had destroyed the social and secular fabric of the society in Karnataka by spreading hatred among people.

While addressing the Congress workers at Nehru Maidan, Sonia Gandhi asked her partymen to “fight forces of communalism regardless where they originate from”. She asked the workers to defeat the “forces of communalism” in the coming Assembly elections in the State. The Congress President added that the people in the State were “fed up and disenchanted” with the ruling of the BJP because it made “empty promises”. “The BJP has betrayed the mandate of the people,” she added.

Sonia Gandhi also said that widespread corruption in the State had tarnished the image of the BJP in Karnataka. The Congress leader said that the public discontent and anger against the BJP in the State should be converted into “votes for a change and a vote for the Congress” in the next Assembly elections. It depended on how effectively the party workers highlighted the failures of the BJP and policies of the Congress to the people.

Referring to the cap on the supply of cooking gas cylinders, Sonia Gandhi said that the Congress-ruled states were providing subsidy for three additional cylinders thus taking the total number of subsidised cylinders to be delivered to a customer to nine. She asked the BJP why it did not do so in Karnataka. Sonia Gandhi also took the State government to task for not reducing VAT on diesel.

The Congress president informed that the State government was complaining that the Union government was not helping it and was not releasing enough funds. Sonia Gandhi claimed that the Congress-led UPA government at the centre, in the past five years, sent funds worth Rs. 80,000 crore to the State. But the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government during its five-year tenure gave Rs. 30,000 crore, she said. Sonia Gandhi added that if the State needed more funds to tackle drought she would put a word to the Union government.

This article is posted by pressbrief.in