"Congress has only given khatakhat jhoot and loot model," BJP's Shehzad Poonawalla slams Karnataka govt over alleged housing scam
New Delhi [India], June 21 (ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shehzad Poonawalla launched a scathing attack on the Congress party on Saturday, saying that while leading the Karnataka government the party has only given the state a 'khatakhat jhoot and loot model,' alleging that the state government is giving off houses meant to be for poor people through bribes.
'The Congress party has only given a khatakhat jhoot & loot model in Karnataka. First, they gave false guarantees, came to power, and now they are looting with both hands -- be it the MUDA Scam, Valmiki Scam, Liquor Scam, Rice Procurement Scam, or land scams of all kinds. Now there's a housing scam, where houses belonging to the poorest of the poor are being sold off for massive bribes,' Poonawalla told ANI in Delhi.
Questioning the state government, the BJP leader asked whether a CBI or independent judicial probe would be carried out as the matter first became public knowledge through a Congress MLA.
'Now the question is -- will any action be taken against the said minister? Will there be a CBI or an independent judicial probe in this matter? Because the allegation hasn't come from the BJP or any activist -- it has been made by a Congress MLA,' he said.
Poonawalla was referencing an alleged leaked audio of Congress MLA BR Patil, in which the party leader is purportedly heard accusing officials of taking bribes for allotting houses.
Yesterday, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah defended the decision by his government to increase reservation quota by 10-15 per cent in various housing schemes, saying that the decision was in line with the central government's guidelines based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's program for the welfare of minorities.
He said the program directs all implementing agencies to earmark '15 per cent of physical and financial targets for minorities wherever possible.'
Reacting to criticism that the state government's decision was 'unconstitutional or appeasement,' the Karnataka CM asked why the guidelines issued by the centre were being implemented under government schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
'This guideline is issued by the BJP-led Union Government and has been in force for years. If this was unconstitutional or appeasement, why did the Union Government ask all states to follow it? Why is it being implemented under Central schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana?' he asked.
Siddaramaiah further said that the state government's decision doesn't grant 'blanket enhancement' of quota across Karnataka but addresses a specific implementation challenge to ensure optimal use of allocated targets. (ANI)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Indian Express
24 minutes ago
- Indian Express
BJP working on restoring peace, installing popular govt in Manipur, says Biren Singh
Former Manipur CM N Biren Singh has said that the BJP is constantly working towards restoring peace and installing a popular government in the state at the earliest. Singh was talking to reporters after attending a state BJP meeting held on Saturday, chaired by A Sharda Devi, the state BJP president. 'BJP's main objective and concern is to restore peace in the state and install a popular government in Manipur. We have also approached the central leaders many times for the same. Given the current situation in Manipur, we are confident that the central leaders would soon install a popular government. For more than seven months there have been no reports of any hostility between communities. Peace is gradually returning to Manipur,' said Biren Singh. The former CM said that people are realising the threat posed by illegal immigrants and drugs in the entire region, including Manipur. State BJP president, A Sharda Devi said the state BJP has informed the central leaders about the strong desire of the people to have a popular government in the state at the earliest. 'We believe the Centre will do the needful very soon,' she said. Manipur was placed under President's Rule on February 13 days after Biren Singh resigned as the chief minister. While the state legislators had on several occasions met the Governor of Manipur to form a new government, there has been no significant breakthrough.
Indian Express
24 minutes ago
- Indian Express
On Nitish turf, Chirag set to sharpen ‘new leadership' pitch, step up ‘Bahujan outreach'
Barely three weeks after Union minister Chirag Paswan stirred Bihar politics by announcing that he would contest in the upcoming state Assembly polls, the LJP (Ram Vilas) president is going to step up pressure on ally JD (U) by holding a rally in Rajgir – in Nalanda district, the home turf of Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar – on Sunday. The LJP (RV) has dubbed its Rajgir meeting 'Bahujan sankalp samagam', where Chirag would focus on 'Bahujan' and 'nav netritva' (new leadership) in a bid to expand his party's base beyond Paswans – the Scheduled Caste (SC) group to which he belongs – to other Bahujan communities. While both Nitish and Chirag are key allies of the BJP-led NDA, their relations have been strained, with the LJP(RV) chief now positioning himself for a larger role in Bihar politics. For the last couple of months, the LJP (RV) has engaged in posturings in what has been seen as its bid to get a sizeable number of seats to contest in the Assembly polls due in October-November this year. While senior partners, BJP and JD(U), are likely to contest from about 100 seats each in the elections to the 243-member House, the LJP (RV) and other junior NDA allies – including Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) and former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha's Rashtriya Lok Morcha – have also been attempting to claim larger shares in seat-sharing. In the Lok Sabha polls, the LJP(RV) had won five seats out of five it was allotted by the NDA out of the state's 40 seats. For the Assembly polls, the NDA leadership has yet to kickstart the seat-sharing negotiations among its allies. Chirag, 42, now clearly seems to be looking to take centrestage in Bihar politics with his party calling for a 'new leadership' in the state. At the LJP(RV)'s June 8 rally in Arah, Chirag had announced that he would contest the 'Assembly polls from any seat people would want him to contest from'. At the Rajgir meeting, he is expected to push for 'Bihar's leadership for Bahujans', especially for the SCs which account for 19.65% of the state's population. Paswans make up about 5.33% of the state's population. The LJP (RV)'s Jamui MP Arun Bharti, who is also Chirag's brother-in-law, said, in a social media post, on the eve of the Rajgir event: 'Though Bahujan samaj has a huge population, it has been kept out from leadership role. The social group which is the biggest was shown/ treated as the smallest one. But, not any longer. From land of Rajgir, we are going to make an important announcement – Bahujan will no longer be a crowd but a voice. They will not just vote but lead. Bahujam Sankalp Samagam is not a cultural event but a political clarion call. We are gathering at Rajgir to fight on our terms, choose our leadership. Our leader will be Chirag Paswan.' Of late, Chirag has entrusted Bharti to play a major role in his party for working out its poll strategies. After the LJP(RV) chief's decision to take the plunge in the Assembly polls, RJD leader and Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Tejashwi Yadav asked him to clear the air if he 'wanted to become Bihar CM'. 'Let him (Chirag) say it clearly, it will give clarity to NDA and INDIA bloc,' Tejashwi said. An LJP (RV) leader told The Indian Express: 'As of now, we are engaging in intense posturings to get a good number of seats for the upcoming polls. We also want winnable seats. With five MPs, we are the BJP's third most important NDA ally at the Centre. If a party like HAM (S) with one MP can ask for 40 seats, how many should we ask for with that calculation'. In the 2020 Assembly polls in which the then undivided LJP had contested alone, the party had got 5.66% votes while winning just one seat. On the LJP(RV)'s 'Bahujan outreach and new leadership call', another party leader said: 'Bihar politics has been undergoing a churn and a new political order will emerge sooner or later. Chirag will play a key role in that process, more so with Nitish Kumar seen to be walking into the sunset of his long political innings.' Santosh Singh is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express since June 2008. He covers Bihar with main focus on politics, society and governance. Investigative and explanatory stories are also his forte. Singh has 25 years of experience in print journalism covering Bihar, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. ... Read More
Hindustan Times
29 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
What's in the latest version of Trump's big bill now before US Senate
At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. Now it's up to Congress to decide whether President Donald Trump's signature's domestic policy package will become law. US Senators were working through the weekend to pass the 'Big, Beautiful Bill' and send it back to the House for a final vote. (Getty Images via AFP) Trump told Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by the Fourth of July. Senators were working through the weekend to pass the bill and send it back to the House for a final vote. Democrats are united against it. Here's the latest on what's in the bill. There could be changes as lawmakers negotiate. Tax cuts are the priority Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump's first term expire. The legislation contains roughly $3.8 trillion in tax cuts. The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill. It temporarily would add new tax breaks that Trump campaigned on: no taxes on tips, overtime pay or some automotive loans, along with a bigger $6,000 deduction in the Senate draft for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year. It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200 under the Senate proposal. Families at lower income levels would not see the full amount. A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It's a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years. There are scores of business-related tax cuts. The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, which would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House's version. Middle-income taxpayers would see a tax break of $500 to $1,500, the CBO said. Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump's border and national security agenda, including $46 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history. Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year. The homeland security secretary would have a new $10 billion fund for grants for states that help with federal immigration enforcement and deportation actions. The attorney general would have $3.5 billion for a similar fund, known as Bridging Immigration-related Deficits Experienced Nationwide, or BIDEN, referring to former Democratic President Joe Biden. To help pay for it all, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections. For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security. How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back some long-running government programs: Medicaid, food stamps, green energy incentives and others. It's essentially unraveling the accomplishments of the past two Democratic presidents, Biden and Barack Obama. Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse. The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program's work requirements. There's also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services. Some 80 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama's Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts. All told, the CBO estimates that under the House-passed bill, at least 10.9 million more people would go without health coverage and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps. The Senate proposes a $25 billion Rural Hospital Transformation Program to help offset reduced Medicaid dollars. It's a new addition, intended to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that the proposed Medicaid provider tax cuts would hurt rural hospitals. Both the House and Senate bills propose a dramatic rollback of the Biden-era green energy tax breaks for electric vehicles. They also would phase out or terminate the various production and investment tax credits companies use to stand up wind, solar and other renewable energy projects. In total, cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs would be expected to produce at least $1.5 trillion in savings. Trump savings accounts and so, so much more A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities. The House and Senate both have a new children's savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury. The Senate provided $40 million to establish Trump's long-sought 'National Garden of American Heroes.' There's a new excise tax on university endowments. A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated. One provision bars money to family planning providers, namely Planned Parenthood, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee. Another section expands the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a hard-fought provision from Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, for those impacted by nuclear development and testing. Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for exploration to Mars. The bill would deter states from regulating artificial intelligence by linking certain federal AI infrastructure money to maintaining a freeze. Seventeen Republican governors asked GOP leaders to drop the provision. Also, the interior secretary would be directed to sell certain Bureau of Land Management acreage to provide for housing, but senators said that measure could be stripped out during the amendment process. Additionally, a provision would increase the nation's debt limit, by $5 trillion, to allow continued borrowing to pay already accrued bills. What's the final cost? Altogether, keeping the existing tax breaks and adding the new ones is expected to cost $3.8 trillion over the decade, the CBO says in its analysis of the House bill. An analysis of the Senate draft is pending. The CBO estimates the House-passed package would add $2.4 trillion to the nation's deficits over the decade. Or not, depending on how one does the math. Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already 'current policy.' Senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach. Under the Senate GOP view, the tax provisions cost $441 billion, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Democrats and others say this is 'magic math' that obscures the true costs of the GOP tax breaks. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the Senate tally at $4.2 trillion over the decade.
