Funds promised for doubling Bangalore-Mysore rail line

By Our Staff Correspondent

MYSORE, JAN. 9. The Minister of State for Railways, Mr. Digvijay Singh, on Tuesday announced that budgetary allocation would be made for doubling the railway line between Mysore and Bangalore this year.

He was addressing a public meeting at the Town Hall here, at the culmination of the two-day national council meeting of the Samata Party.

Mr. Singh said doubling of the railway line between Mysore and Bangalore was a long-pending demand of the people of the region. It was a project that had been held up due to funds crunch, he added.

Commenting on the other projects in the region, he said the Railways would consider them on priority.

The Union Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution, Mr. U. Srinivas Prasad, criticised both the Congress(I) and the Janata Dal for the economic policies they pursued when they were in power at the Centre. He said they were responsible for the predicament of the farmers in the country. "It was the Congress(I) Government which signed the WTO (agreement) and the Janata Dal Government which blindly supported it. The former Prime Minister, Mr. H.D. Deve Gowda, is blaming the NDA for the fall in the prices of agricultural commodities, but he had no hesitation in taking the support of the Congress(I) to form a government. Although Mr. Gowda accuses the NDA of supporting "communal BJP", he became a minister in 1983 with the support of the BJP," Mr. Prasad added.

He said the Samata Party was part of the NDA which had a common agenda. It could, therefore, not be described as communal. The Samata Party had nothing to do with the agenda of the BJP, which also could not be termed as communal as contentious issues, including Article 370 and uniform civil code, had been relegated by that party.

The Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, the President of the Samata Party, Ms. Jaya Jaitley, the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar, and the leader of the "rebel" faction of the Samata Party, Mr. Raghunath Jha, addressed the gathering.

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