Siddaramaiah failed to manage economy of Karnataka, alleges MLC

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has failed to manage the economy of Karnataka, BJP MLC Pratap Simha Nayak alleged here on Thursday.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has failed to manage the economy of Karnataka, BJP MLC Pratap Simha Nayak alleged here on Thursday.

Addressing presspersons, he said that the State Gross Domestic Product (SGDP) of Karnataka under the Congress rule has for the first time fell below the national average of GDP. In 2021-22, the SGDP of Karnataka was at 9.8% while the country’s GDP stood at 9.1%. Karnataka’s SGDP stood at 8.1% while the country’s GDP was at 7.2% during 2022-23. But in 2023-24, the MLC said the State’s SGDP fell to 6.6% while the country’s GDP was at 7.3%.

“This indicates that Mr. Siddaramaiah, who boasts himself as an economic expert as he presented 15 State Budgets, has failed to manage the economy,” Mr. Nayak alleged.

He said that the Chief Minister to cover up his failure is blaming the Union government in the matter relating to devolution of taxes, drought, and flood relief.

Mr. Nayak alleged that the State government has not been able to achieve 40% of the target of the projects announced in the Budget for 2023-24.

The State government did not increase the limit of zero per cent interest based farm loan from ₹3 lakh to ₹5 lakh as promised and did not release ₹1,200 crore due to dairy farmers as incentive. “This shows that the State has gone bankrupt,” Mr. Nayak said. He said that under the devolution of taxes the then UPA government released ₹81,000 crore to Karnataka from 2004 to 2014. In the next 10 years after the NDA took over, the State got ₹2.36 lakh crore from the Union government, he said.

Former MLC Ganesh Karnik was also present.