Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said that the contribution of the state to the national tax revenue exceeded the funds it received from the Union government and called for fairness in the distribution of the central tax revenue, the Hindustan Times reported.

“Karnataka is the second-largest contributor to the central tax revenue after Maharashtra,” the chief minister said at the state day event in Bengaluru. “Under the federal system, there should not be any injustice just because Karnataka is a progressive state.”

While the state contributed over Rs 4,00,000 crore in taxes, it received Rs 55,000 crore to Rs 60,000 crore in return, the Congress leader said. “We are only getting 14 to 15 paise for every rupee we contribute,” he added.

He added: “No one should milk a milch cow completely dry, or else the calf will be malnourished.”

Siddaramaiah asked the Lok Sabha MPs from Karnataka to raise the problem of fiscal inequity in Parliament.

“When we demand justice, they are politicising the issue,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “We should launch a movement to get our rightful dues.”

Row erupts between Congress, BJP over poll promises

On Friday, a war of words also erupted between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party after Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticised the Opposition party over its election promises.

At a Congress event on Thursday, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge had criticised his party colleague and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar for saying a day earlier that a scheme allowing women to travel for free on buses in the state would be revisited, the Deccan Herald reported.

Siddaramaiah clarified that the deputy chief minister meant to say that the scheme would be revised. “By saying revision, you’ve created doubts,” Kharge said in response. “And that’s enough for those who want to criticise.”

In an apparent reference to this, Modi on Friday said that the Congress was “realising the hard way that making unreal promises is easy but implementing them properly is tough or impossible”.

On social media, the prime minister said: “Campaign after campaign they [Congress] promise things to the people, which they also know they will never be able to deliver. Now, they stand badly exposed in front of the people.”

Modi added that the promises made by the Congress governments in Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana remained unfulfilled.

“The developmental trajectory and fiscal health [in these states] is turning from bad to worse,” he claimed. “Their so-called guarantees lie unfulfilled, which is a terrible deceit upon the people of these states.”

Responding to Modi’s remarks, Kharge said that “lies, deceit, fraud, loot and publicity” were the five adjectives that best defines the BJP government at the Centre.

He added: “On May 16, 2024 you had also claimed that you took inputs from more than 20 lakh people for the road map for 2047.”

The Prime Minister’s Office had “declined to put forth details” of the plan when a query was raised under the Right to Information Act, Kharge said.

He added: “The ‘B’ in BJP stands for Betrayal, while the ‘J’ stands for ‘Jhumla’. Setting the record straight.”

Siddaramaiah also claimed that Modi’s remarks were “false allegations” and said that the prime minister should take a look at the BJP’s “disastrous legacy” in Karnataka.

“We are fulfilling every promise we made to our people,” he said on social media. “BJP left Karnataka plagued with 40 percent commission corruption, draining resources that could have transformed lives.”

He added: “Let’s hold a public debate on the manifesto released by your party before the last two Lok Sabha elections. How many of the promises you made in the manifesto have you fulfilled? Let’s discuss it publicly.”