Mangaluru: Senior Congress leader Janardhan Poojary held a press meet to address certain issues, at the District Congress Office here, on November 21.
Speaking on the Yettinahole project, Poojary said, “It seems that the state government has set its mind to destroy Karavali by continuing the Yettinahole project. There is no use to any one from this project. The people of Kolar have also protested for a permanent solution rather than Yettinahole, but the government does not seem to care about the people’s opinion. The people of Karavali and Kolar both, do not want the Yettinahole project. So who are they continuing the project for?”
“The opposition is also doing a ‘drama’. The MPs from the state organise ‘jathas’, which promote the bike companies more than they do the project, but they do not have mouths to speak out this issue in Parliament. And on the other hand, we have a Prime Minister who is always on foreign trips and has no time for the country’s problems. If these representatives have honesty, they should meet him when as soon as he is in the country and present this issue to him. All the representatives of the state should stop sleeping and wake up.”
Speaking on the private members bill put forth in the Karnataka Assembly by Congress MLA and former Speaker Ramesh Kumar to control marriages by seeking to discourage lavish weddings and reforming the legal framework for the institution of marriage, Poojary sarcastically said, “This is a good idea indeed! Now, during a person’s wedding day, which is supposed to be a day of happiness, the government will send officers with search warrants to count how many people are attending, how many plates of food is being served, how much each and every person’s gold weighs, etc.”
He further said, “Why should the government control marriages? It’s an individuals choice to marry and spend as much as they want to spend on it. It is their choice, not yours [government]. Let the people do what they want for their weddings. It is a day when a person should be happy, why is the government trying to bring fear to such a happy day? There are many more important issues that need to be solved than this. The CM should not support this. This is another way to bring in corruption and fear among the people. There is the Income Tax department to look into the illegally obtained assets.”
Instead of trying to control the common man, they should first look into how much the ministers and people’s representatives are spending and try to bring their expenditure down. “Seven crores is been spent for the renovation and maintenance of the houses of ministers. If you cannot do that, then you have no right to tell others to stop spending lavishly. I was a minister for 8 years and during that time, I painted my house just once. Before coming to power, the government had made many promises to the people. Let fulfill all of them first and then try to do things that the people never asked for,” he added.
Speaking on the comments made by BJP leader Dr Subramanian Swamy questioning Rahul Gandhi’s Indian citizenship, he said that Rahul is the great grandson of Jawarharlal Nehru, the grandson of Indira Gandhi and the son of Rajiv Gandhi, who have sacrificed a lot for the country. “Forgetting this, Swamy is questioning if Rahul is Indian or not? Any citizen of the country would be hurt by this. Instead of making useless comments to show that they are in power, the BJP should learn lessons from their defeats in Delhi and Bihar,” he added.
