Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah approves Congress’ 5 poll ‘guarantees’ in first cabinet meeting

New Delhi: Karnataka’s newly elected Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said on Saturday that orders have been issued in the first cabinet meeting to implement the five guarantees that the party had promised before the elections. The five ‘main’ guarantees are 200 units of free electricity to all households (griha jyoti); Monthly assistance of Rs 2,000 to the female head of each household (Griha Lakshmi); 10 kg rice free to each member of BPL family (Anna Bhagya); Rs 3,000 per month for unemployed graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for unemployed diploma holders (both in the 18-25 age group) for two years (Yuva Nidhi) and free travel for women in public transport buses (Uthik Prayan).

Addressing a press conference after the first cabinet meeting at Vidhana Soudha here, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah said, “Five guarantees were promised in the manifesto and the implementation of those five guarantees was ordered after the first cabinet meeting.” . Will be in all. force after the next cabinet meeting, which will be called within a week.”

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The session of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly is to be held on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week. Also, hours after being sworn in as Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah attacked the previous Bharatiya Janata Party government, saying that the government that ruled earlier was a waste. “The government that was ruling earlier was useless. They could not give us our share of taxes properly. The Center has to give us Rs 5,495 crore as per the recommendation of the Finance Commission.”

Earlier in the day, eight Congress MLAs took oath as ministers in the Karnataka cabinet during a swearing-in ceremony in Bengaluru on Saturday. The eight MLAs include Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge, party MLAs G Parameshwara and MB Patil.

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Other MLAs who took oath include KH Muniyappa, KJ George, Satish Jarkiholi, Ramalinga Reddy and BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan. Top leaders of the Congress party, including Gandhi family members Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, along with party national president Mallikarjun Kharge were present on the occasion.

Chief Ministers of Congress ruled states including Himachal CM Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel attended the event. The party had also sent invitations to several opposition parties and their leaders.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his deputy Tejashwi Yadav, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, Farooq Abdullah were also present during the swearing-in ceremony. Other opposition leaders present included Sharad Pawar and Kamal Haasan.

Actor and head of Makkal Needhi Maiam Kamal Haasan attended the swearing-in ceremony of the newly-elected Karnataka government in Bengaluru. Before the ceremony, Rahul Gandhi, Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah were seen holding each other’s hands in the air in a show of strength and unity.

The Congress won 135 seats in the elections to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly on 10 May, leaving the ruling BJP with 66 seats, while the Janata Dal (Secular) secured 19 seats in the results declared on 13 May.