Siddaramaiah trashes BJP’s allegations of Congress link to seized cash

The opposition parties are making baseless allegations and are issuing politically motivated statements linking the Congress to the contractors, whose houses were raided by I-T (income tax) department, said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

Speaking to reporters in the city on Monday Siddaramaiah said, “There are no such BJP contractors or Congress contractors. I call them as BJP contractors. There is nothing between the Congress and the contractors. It is all baseless allegations”.

To a query on the BJP staging protests against the Congress, Siddaramaiah said that the people would not believe them. “They are involved in protests and allegations, in view of the upcoming elections for Lok Sabha and polls in five states,” he added.

Commenting on former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy’s allegation that a probe should be conducted into the I-T raids, he asked, “Why should we conduct a probe? It is an I-T raid. There is no need for any probe”.

Referring to BJP leader C T Ravi’s allegation that Congress high command has given a target to the state Congress to collect funds for the elections, the chief minister said that the high command had not sought even a single rupee.

“Besides, there is no need for me to react to Ravi’s statements, which are always false,” he said.

The chief minister said that state was facing power shortage due to deficit rainfall.

“The pump sets require more power to pump water, during drought. I have instructed the officials to provide five hours of continuous three-phase power, shift-wise for the farmers. I have directed to purchase power to address the shortage and stress on co-generation of power in sugarcane factories,” he said.