Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (SP)

Bangalore, Aug 27:  Leader of the opposition in the state legislative council V S Ugrappa of the Congress has suggested to the BJP leaders to change the name of their party to 'Bharatiya Bhrashtachara Party'. He was speaking at a press conference held on Tuesday August 26, at his office located in the Vidhana Soudha.

At a time when the farmers of the state are suffering because of floods and shortage of seeds, the BJP government led by B S Yeddyurappa is busy with 'operation Kamala' meant to hook legislators and leaders from other parties, he criticized.

The BJP had accused the ex-forest minister and JD (S) leader Chennigappa of collecting bribe amounting to Rs 150 crore from miners on behalf of the then chief minister. As Chennigappa along with his son are now supporting the saffron outfit, the party is trying to give a decent burial to the allegations against him. This proves that the BJP is prepared to stretch to any extent for clinging on to power, Ugrappa said.

The farmers have been able to commence agricultural operations in only 40,90,000 hectares of land in the state, as against the expected area of 73,73,000 hectares. Due to improper crops in about seven lac hectares, agriculturists are facing acute problems. The government is turning a blind to these problems, Ugrappa claimed.

He also derided the BJP government for declaring 124 taluks as drought-hit in the previous month and downwardly revising the figure to 84 taluks in this month. The state government has neither undertaken relief measures in these taluks, nor properly implemented the employment guarantee scheme of the union government. It has failed to come to the rescue of 192 villages affected by floods and families which lost innumerable houses apart from 19 people to heavy rains, he complained.

Ugrappa called upon the government to immediately pay compensation to those who suffered losses because of vagaries of the monsoon and to provide permanent relief to the suffering people.