Checking out Yr For Congress In Karnataka Amid Freebie Troubles, Scams: Will Siddaramaiah Executive Live to tell the tale 2025? – News18
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Because the birthday celebration completes part its time period, analysts really feel it’s vital that the Siddaramaiah govt refocuses on handing over its guarantees and elevating revenues to make sure now not handiest this but in addition that different construction priorities are sorted
CM Siddaramaiah and deputy leader minister DK Shivakumar have defended Karnataka’s welfare fashion. (Record symbol: PTI)
Karnataka leader minister Siddaramaiah faces one of the difficult years of his four-decade-long political profession within the second-term govt he’s main. The Congress can have come to energy with a thumping majority of 135 out of the full 224 MLAs with the promise to fulfil its 5 bold ensure schemes to the folk of the state, but it surely now grapples with monetary traces, grievance over those welfare programmes, and controversies such because the Valmiki Company and Mysore City Building Authority (MUDA) scams, amongst others.
The welfare schemes have supplied the opposition BJP-JD(S) alliance a platform to sharpen its assault at the Congress govt because the query looms whether or not the Siddaramaiah govt will live to tell the tale regardless of the freebie troubles.
Burden of ensure schemes
The Congress govt’s 5 flagship ensure schemes—Shakti (unfastened bus rides for girls), Gruha Lakshmi (per month support of Rs 2,000 to ladies heads of households), Gruha Jyothi (unfastened electrical energy as much as 200 gadgets), Anna Bhagya (unfastened rice), and Yuva Nidhi (unemployment allowance)—had been the cornerstone of its election marketing campaign. Those guarantees helped the birthday celebration safe a powerful victory. However is implementation now proving to be a double-edged sword?
Karnataka leader minister Siddaramaiah, whilst presenting his fifteenth Price range, introduced an outlay of Rs 3.71 lakh crore for the state this monetary yr and highlighted projections of Karnataka’s economic system increasing by means of 6.6% within the monetary yr 2024-25.
In combination, those schemes eat just about one-sixth of the state’s Rs 3.71 lakh crore annual funds, amounting to roughly Rs 52,000 crore. This fiscal pressure has raised issues about Karnataka’s financial well being. Critics, together with the Bharatiya Janata Celebration and Janata Dal (Secular), argue that the state’s coffers are being tired, leaving little room for developmental tasks.
Critique of promises
At one level, senior Congress MLA and Siddaramaiah’s financial adviser Basavaraj Rayareddy said the problem, declaring, “The state must allocate Rs 60,000 crore yearly for those schemes, leaving no budget for construction tasks.” Despite the fact that the minister used to be pulled up, this admission lent weight to opposition claims that the federal government’s welfare guarantees might be unsustainable.
Even Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s recommendation to birthday celebration gadgets to provide handiest “potential” promises has supplied contemporary ammunition to the Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP).
Top Minister Narendra Modi additionally criticised the Congress for what he known as “unreal guarantees”. Whilst Kharge brushed aside Modi’s remarks as a “reasonable PR stunt”.
Siddaramaiah and deputy leader minister DK Shivakumar defended the state’s welfare fashion.
Shivakumar claimed Karnataka’s monetary well being used to be more potent than the Centre’s, despite the fact that information paints a extra advanced image.
Karnataka’s monetary steadiness
Insiders say that, underneath drive to fulfil the 5 promises, the Siddaramaiah-led Karnataka govt roped in Boston Consulting Staff (BCG) as a specialist. The BCG has been tasked with bobbing up with methods to spice up income and plug leakages in income collections. The 5 promises, promised by means of the Congress all over the meeting elections, price the exchequer Rs 36,000 crore in 2023-24.
The state is underneath pressure as each state tax revenues and budget from the Centre have dropped. The state’s tax income fell from 7.54% of GDP in 2021-22 to six.24% in 2023-24, in line with the state funds. Central grants additionally diminished considerably, from 1.22% to 0.55% all over the similar length.
One in every of its many tips is to monetise round 25,000 acres of land close to Bengaluru. The Karnataka govt is mulling putting in deliberate satellite tv for pc cities in and round Bengaluru, in addition to in Bidadi, Anekal, Hoskote, Devanahalli, and Doddaballapur.
The state has been looking to strengthen expenditure control in departments like irrigation, power, public works, rural construction, and panchayati raj.
The state govt has been hoping to boost an extra Rs 5,000 crore in line with fiscal, in line with further leader secretary (finance) LK Atheeq, who added that extra compliance in GST and assets tax may also assist generate extra income.
Every other Karnataka Congress MLA, HR Gaviyappa, additionally urged that the ballot ensure schemes had been placing a pressure at the govt’s budget. He mentioned it used to be making it tough to approve housing for the homeless. On the other hand, he later retracted his observation after being pulled up by means of DK Shivakumar.
Shivakumar, who may be the state Congress president, clarified that not one of the 5 ensure schemes can be stopped.
“We promised the folk of the state that we might put into effect the promises, and we can stay that promise. No Congress MLA must query the ensure schemes,” he added, declaring that the birthday celebration would take motion if somebody did.
Karnataka promises for Telangana win?
Siddaramaiah mentioned the Congress’s victory in Telangana used to be because of the a hit implementation of ensure schemes in Karnataka.
Siddaramaiah, who campaigned in Telangana at the side of his deputy, Shivakumar, brushed aside claims by means of then Telangana leader minister Ok Chandrashekar Rao and BJP leaders that Karnataka’s ensure schemes weren’t being carried out. He even invited Rao to Karnataka for a “fact take a look at”.
“A yr in the past, no person concept the Congress may win in Telangana. The Bharat Jodo Yatra, led by means of Rahul Gandhi, energised our staff. The Karnataka victory, a well-planned marketing campaign, and the luck of our ensure schemes helped acquire the agree with of citizens in Telangana,” Siddaramaiah mentioned.
In September, the Telangana Congress introduced six promises forward of the elections, hoping to duplicate the luck of the birthday celebration in Karnataka, the place it gained 135 out of 224 seats. The Congress in Telangana gained 64 out of the full 119 seats, whilst the Bharat Rashtra Samithi gained 39 seats, the BJP controlled to win 8 seats, AIMIM bagged 7 seats, and one seat used to be gained by means of the Communist Celebration of India.
The Congress made the similar 5 ensure guarantees in Madhya Pradesh however misplaced the election, successful handiest 66 seats.
Centre-state tensions
Karnataka’s strained courting with the Nationwide Democratic Alliance-led Centre has handiest added to its troubles. Siddaramaiah has accused the central govt of ignoring the state’s monetary wishes, pointing to the rejection of a Rs 5,400 crore particular grant really useful by means of the fifteenth Finance Fee. The manager minister even skipped the NITI Aayog Governing Council assembly, bringing up the Centre’s indifference against Karnataka’s issues.
The BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS) have capitalised on those problems to mount a concerted assault at the Congress govt. Accusations of stalled construction and financial mismanagement have ruled their political rhetoric.
When the Congress blamed the BJP within the Centre for denying the state monetary assist, union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman rejected Karnataka’s claims of forget, accusing the Congress of making a “toxic narrative” and failing to fulfil its ballot guarantees. The BJP has even revived the contentious thought of a “separate nation for southern India”, first floated by means of Shivakumar’s brother, as a political weapon.
2025 difficult yr for CM Siddaramaiah
Analysts imagine that this has for sure been a difficult yr for Siddaramaiah. On one hand, after the meeting election win, he used to be not able to get an important choice of seats within the Lok Sabha for the Congress, and the explanation at the back of the drubbing might be attributed to the paintings on their promises as properly.
“There’s sufficient empirical proof to turn that the best way wherein the folk replied to the promises in some portions of the state used to be instrumental within the birthday celebration successful the choice of seats that they if truth be told ended up successful. So now not reaching the promise of having a majority of seats, I believe, used to be the primary problem. However being ready to resist a washout in opposition to a coalition I believe used to be what went of their favour,” observes political analyst Sandeep Shastri.
He added that when coming to energy, it’s been extra downhill than uphill, particularly with the sequence of alleged corruption scandals and scams rolling out.
“The Congress needed to be at the defensive on a majority of these fees, and really frequently the executive minister and his deputy had been left to carry the child and protect the federal government,” Shastri mentioned.
The analyst sees a political upside as properly. Two elements, he says, have ensured that it used to be now not all destructive for the Congress in Karnataka.
“The primary is the truth that the state BJP has been a divided space, and the infighting inside the state BJP has avoided it from being extra sharp in its grievance of the federal government. This labored to the ruling birthday celebration’s merit. Secondly, I believe the hat-trick within the by-elections used to be a shot of their arm, which used to be vital,” he mentioned.
On the other hand, because the birthday celebration completes part its time period, he thinks it’s vital that the Siddaramaiah govt refocuses on handing over its guarantees and elevating revenues to make sure now not handiest this but in addition that different construction priorities are sorted.
“I imagine 2025 can be a very powerful with regards to how one of the instances involving the executive minister pan out, and whether or not he’ll have the ability to climate that hurricane can be a vital issue to look at in 2025,” Shastri instructed News18.
