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Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy and his deputy G Parameshwara meet Karnataka Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar after losing the vote of confidence in Assembly Session at Vidhana Soudha, in Bengaluru on Tuesday. (PTI)[/caption]
Bengaluru, July 24 (IANS): Karnataka's Caretaker Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Wednesday said political instability would continue in the southern state even after the next government is formed due to uncertainty over its continuation and longevity.
"I have told all the senior officials to implement the various schemes, programmes and waiver of loans taken by farmers, landless labourers and weaker sections without worrying and paying undue attention on the political crisis and the uncertainty over the next government's survival," Kumaraswamy said, a day after he lost the trust vote and resigned as Chief Minister.
As a farewell gift to the poor, including landless farmers and labourers and weaker sections with less than Rs 1,25,000 per annum family income, he said he had signed an order to waive their loans from money lenders and pawnbrokers under the amended state Debt Relief Act.
"Even in the midst of political crisis and unforeseen developments over the last three weeks across the state, they did not come in the way of implementing the state-run programmes and welfare schemes by the officials concerned," he said.
Thanking President Ram Nath Kovind for signing on July 16 the bill the state legislature had passed in February to amend the Debt Relief Act, Kumaraswamy said a gazette notification was issued on the amended Act on Tuesday for availing the debt relief in the next 90 days.
"I have directed the officials to issue an advertisement on the amended Debt Relief Act in the local language (Kannada) on Thursday for the benefit of those who took loans or mortgaged their property to money-lenders and pawnbrokers despite high interest rates on the loans."
Assistant Commissioners in all 30 districts across the state will be the nodal officers to make one-time settlement of the loans or assets pledged by the poor with money-lenders and pawnbrokers, who have been exploiting them over the decades.
Rahul, Priyanka slam BJP after govt falls in Karnataka
Outgoing Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and party General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi on Tuesday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after the 14-month-old Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government in Karnataka failed to prove its majority in the floor test in the state Assembly.
"From its first day, the Cong-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka was a target for vested interests, both within and outside, who saw the alliance as a threat and an obstacle in their path to power. Their greed won today. Democracy, honesty and the people of Karnataka lost," Rahul Gandhi tweeted.
His sister Priyanka Gandhi also slammed the BJP, saying one day it will discover that everything cannot be bought and till then the citizens will have to endure their unbridled corruption.
"One day the BJP will discover that everything cannot be bought, everyone cannot be bullied and every lie is eventually exposed," she said in a series of tweets.
"Until then I suppose the citizens of our country will have to endure their unbridled corruption, the systematic dismantling of institutions that protect the people's interests and the weakening of a democracy that took decades of toil and sacrifice to build," she said in another tweet.
The Congress leaders remarks came after the Congress-JD(S) government lost the trust vote on the floor of the Karnataka Assembly by six votes after a four-day debate on the confidence motion that was moved by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.
Of the 225-member Assembly, 20 legislators were absent for the floor test, reducing the House strength to 205 with 103 as the halfway mark for simple majority. In the division of votes, 99 were for the motion and 105 against it.
Political crisis gripped the 14-month-old fledgling government in Karnataka after 13 Congress and 3 JD-S rebels resigned between July 1 and July 10 in protest against weak leadership and lack of development across the southern state.
