Contaminated water: Focus on saving lives, BJP tells Priyank Kharge

Taking a swipe at IT/BT Minister Priyank Kharge’s constant criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP spokesperson M G Mahesh on Wednesday sought to know from the minister why “innocent” people were dying across the state after consuming contaminated water.

Kharge, on Tuesday, had accused Modi’s office of bullying companies into diverting their investments towards Gujarat from other states.

Mahesh told reporters that Kharge, ever since he became minister, has behaved irresponsibly and wastes most of his time making charges against the union government or prime minister, to hide the failures of the Congress government in the state. 

Claiming that the state witnessed at least 20 deaths in the last two months due to contamination of water, he said these deaths show how badly the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, which is responsible for supplying clean potable water to people, functioned under Kharge.

“Industries in the state are migrating as this government has failed to deliver on development. The ill-thought out policies pursued by the government are directly responsible for industries migrating to other states. Power tariff rise and acute shortage of water are the reasons for industries shifting out of Karnataka,” he argued.