Gowda denies rift with BSY

Chief Minister D V Sadananda Gowda on Friday denied there was any rift between himself and former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, however, added that he would not agree everything was fine. There were some issues which need to be sorted out.

“Any minor differences will be sorted out by the party’s Central leaders,” he told the media person Yeddyurappa was neither remote-controlling him nor interfering in the administration, he said.

The Chief Minister was visiting Suttur for inaugurating mass marriages as part of the 13th annual Suttur Jathra celebrations in Nanjangud taluk.

About the former Chief Minister’s proposal to hold conventions in different parts of the State, Gowda said Yeddyurappa was the State BJP leader and hence there was nothing wrong in holding such meetings for strengthening the party.

Asked about the power crisis the State is facing, he said his Government had already initiated steps to import power from neighbouring States. Blaming the Centre for ‘step-motherly’ attitude in making available adequate quantum of coal for the state’s thermal power plants, the Chief Minister said he would discuss the matter with the Prime Minister.

The amount earmarked for development programmes in the budget would be spent. A review of the work done by some departments had shown that a few of them had achieved 80 to 85 per cent progress. However, some were lagging behind with poor progress. He had directed all the departments to meet the target within the next two months of the fiscal year, he said.

The Government had accepted the sugarcane cultivators’ demand to fix price on the basis of yield. He had asked the Ministers for Agriculture and Sugar and officials of those ministries to take steps in this direction, Gowda told the farm leaders who met him.