Foreign jaunt row: MLAs insist they will go ahead

Unfazed by criticism over its foreign jaunt at a time when the state is hit by drought, a Karnataka legislature committee today insisted it would go ahead with the visit to Brazil, Argentina and Peru with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah also defending their tour.

As the jaunt by a contingent of about 18 MLAs planned for January stirred up a controversy, Siddaramaiah told reporters the trip was decided by the legislature committee and it was not as if they were going on the foreign tour this year for the first time. “Why are you making it a big issue?” Siddaramaiah asked reporters, adding, “It is the legislature committee which decides and they don’t come to us (the government).”

Unperturbed by the controversy, Mallikayya Gutedar, who heads the legislature’s Estimates Committee, said they had decided to go ahead with their trip, whose schedule would be decided depending on the legislature session next month.

“We are not committing a big crime. Don’t you send school children on vacation. Similarly MPs and MLAs are being sent through the legislature committees,” he told reporters. He said Rs 7 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh was being spent on each MLA and “not crores of rupees,” and added legislators in other states too undertake similar study tours.