Karnataka   

Siddaramaiah harps on free power to farmers

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

High hopes: Congress leaders at the party’s election campaign meeting in Davangere on Sunday.

Davangere: The former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said here on Sunday that if the Congress was voted to power in the Assembly elections all farmers who had 10 hectares of agricultural land would get free power.

They would also get subsidy for purchase of tractors and for drip irrigation on their farms. Mr. Siddaramaiah, also chairman of the Campaign Committee of the KPCC, was delivering the presidential address at the farmers’ rally here.

This also marked the inauguration of the party election campaign by KPCC president M. Mallikarjun Kharge.

He said that if the Congress won the elections it would increase power generation by another 5,000 MW and allocate Rs. 5,000 crore for completing all irrigation projects dams in the State.

He alleged that the BJP-Janata Dal (S) government had “squandered” Rs.1,000 crore in the name of modernising the Bhadra canals.

Congress leaders such as M. Veerappa Moily, S.M. Krishna, N. Dharam Singh, B. Janardhana Poojary, Allum Veerabhadrappa and M.P. Prakash were present on the dais. The KPCC, Mr. Siddaramaiah said, would approach AICC president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to look into the advice of AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi to raise the two hectare ceiling for loan waiver to five hectares.

Legislative measures would be introduced to curb private moneylending, he added.

The BJP, he charged, was only interested in dividing society.

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