Every penny of grant used for dvpt: Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah hits out at Amit Shah

Responding to BJP chief Amit Shah's demands that the Karnataka government give an audit of Central aid provided to the state, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said that every rupee of the Central aid to the state for the last five years had been accounted for before the Assembly with Leader of Opposition Jagadish Shettar being aware of it.

The remark from the CM comes as the BJP chief had been reiterating that the Central government had increased the aid to Karnataka from Rs 88,583 crore to Rs 2,19,506 crore over a period of time to implement Central government schemes in the state and asked Siddaramaiah to furnish the detailed accounts of the expenditure.

"Where did the money go? The answer is that it went into irrigation, schools, hospitals, roads and highways, railway lines, crop insurance, farm loan waiver, and the list goes on. Account for every rupee has been presented before the legislature," Siddaramaiah tweeted.

"The Leader of Opposition in the assembly Jagdish Shettar (BJP) too is aware of it," the CM said.

He also said that these funds were not a special grant to Karnataka and they went into the state budget.

"Was the BJP sleeping for five years? Did they sleep through the 15 legislature sessions where all these accounts were presented, debated and approved? So, please stop fooling the people. Repeating a lie does not make it true," he said.

Siddaramaiah said the Centre reduced its share in Central schemes despite the percentage of devolution being changed from 32 to 42 per cent.