Karnataka CM Defends Guarantee Schemes for Women, Criticizes Opposition

Bengaluru: Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, on Monday, said guarantee schemes were given to women with love and affection to empower them economically and there was no question of stopping them. Speaking to reporters at Vydehi hospital, he said, “The Opposition’s job is to criticize. Whenever we want to do something good, the Opposition objects to it. We are doing things which they could not do. The government is only trying to ensure the guarantee schemes reach eligible beneficiaries. In the beginning, some beneficiaries gave other people’s phone numbers and other details. We have information that money is going into non-beneficiaries. The government’s intention is to make sure the money goes to rightful beneficiaries.” He was replying to questions on Opposition’s campaigning that the guarantee schemes are being stopped. “The government is providing these schemes for the people of Karnataka, it can’t be given to the people of other states. That is why we have decided in the Cabinet to issue identity cards to beneficiaries. That process is underway. Stopping the scheme is not our intention. Our guarantees are a model for the country. Other states, including Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, have followed our model,” he said. “Some people are using Gruha Lakshmi funds for fraudulent finance dealings. We have all seen the Belagavi case. In this backdrop, we have issued directions to clamp down on such schemes wherever they exist – from the gram panchayat level up to the taluk panchayat level. They were given with love because the woman is the eye of the family. Her empowerment is an entire family’s empowerment. Let the Opposition parties keep talking like this,” he hit out. When asked about the Bidadi padayatra, the CM lashed out, “I cannot respond to just anybody’s remarks. In Maharashtra they are building a township on 90,000 acres, and in Telangana on 40,000 acres. Bidadi is not my project. Kumaraswamy was the one who issued the notification for this project. When the previous BJP government acquired 1,000 acres of this land and handed it over to KIADB, why did these people stay silent then? Who created the Harohalli industrial area? Were farmers not displaced then? Here, the farmers have come forward to give their land. But these people want to play politics.”