Outpour of grievances by Karnataka MLAs & MLCs in CLP meeting

The Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting on Tuesday to draw strategies for the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the legislative council election saw an outpouring of grievances by the party MLAs and MLCs against the state government.

Most of the MLAs complained that development works in their constituencies had come to a standstill as no projects were getting approved, party insiders told PTI.

Yashwantpur MLA S T Somashekhar was peeved that some of the mining projects were rejected on technical grounds, whereas some Janata Dal(Secular) (JD-S) leaders got the same contract without any hassle, they said.

His statement was seconded by almost all the MLAs.

An MLA expressed his angst over lack of say even in the police station, let alone the government.

"The MLA said that he did not get permission by the local police station to install Ganesha statue at public places during the Ganesha festival," the sources said.

An MLA said it was becoming difficult for him to continue as a member of legislative assembly and he would prefer resigning from the assembly.

There were also heated exchange of words between Congress MLAs Bhima Naik and Anand Singh from Ballari over their dominance in the district and interference by each other in their respective assembly constituencies.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara assured the MLAs that they will coordinate with the government in a better way to iron out the differences.

Siddaramaiah also cautioned the MLAs against "Operation Kamal" of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to poach on the Congress MLAs. He even took to task some MLAs for leaking information to media.

Later talking to PTI, Parameshwara said the meeting was convened to discuss about the legislative council election.

"The MLAs have the grouse that whatever promises they had made to their electorate before elections were not being fulfilled. Their grouse is valid. We will look into it," he said.