Karnataka farmers cry foul over BJP’s rollback on free power promise

Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa has incurred the wrath of the farming community for withdrawing the BJP’s pre-poll promise of providing free power to irrigation pump-sets across the state.

After Yeddyurappa expressed the Government’s inability to provide free power to all farmers in the state while participating in a phone-in programme on Bangalore Doordarshan on Sunday evening, various farmers’ organizations in the state saw red and accused the BJP Government of “betraying” the farming community.

Responding to a questioner, Yeddyurappa ruled out the possibility of providing free power to all farmers. He said free power would be supplied only to a certain category of farmers with conditions.

The Chief Minister’s rollback on the promise to provide free power to all irrigation pump-sets in the state has served to rub salt into wounds of the farmers, who are already reeling under the impact of fertilizer scarcity.

Many farmers’ organizations were quick to recall Yeddyurappa’s pre-poll promise that the BJP would provide free power to all farmers in the state within 24 hours of coming to power.

Karnataka Prantha Rajya Raitha Sangha, a farmers’ organization, has termed Yeddyurappa’s decision to go back on his pre-poll promise as “the worst betrayal of farmers”.

“Yeddyurappa, who had declared before the elections that he would never go back on his words, has now shown the true colours of his party by refusing to implement his promise of free power to farmers”, General Secretary of the Sangha G C Bayya Reddy said.
With a month of coming to power, the Yeddyurappa Government not only caned at fired at farmers protesting against the shortage of fertilizers, but also refused to honour its pre-poll promise to the farming community, Reddy alleged.