Bangalore: Siddaramaiah, the leader of the opposition, made a statement against the central and state BJP governments and asked that Amul products be taken off the state market with respect.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are you coming to Karnataka to give or take from Kannadigas? Banks, ports, and airports built by the Kannadigas were grabbed up. Are you going to steal our Nandini product now? Asked Siddaramaiah.
Bank of Baroda, which swallowed up our Vijaya Bank, is from Gujarat; Adani, also from Gujarat, grabbed Port and Airport; and Gujarat’s Amul is going to snatch KMF. Are Kannadigas enemies of Gujaratis? This Gujarati invasion can no longer be tolerated. Respectfully stop selling Amul products in Karnataka. Don’t criticise the love and self-respect of Kannadigas; it won’t have any effect. He expressed outrage.
The attack on Nandini milk and milk products started on the day Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah proposed the merger of KMF with Amul. What is your take? Suddenly, Nandini Milk and other products that you are sending from Gujarat have increased. Are these all-natural developments? As promised, two crore jobs per year were not given to the youth; instead, the jobs of Kannadigas in our banks, ports, and airports were taken away. Is it the scheme that hits the stomach of the farmers now? They asked a barrage of questions.
When I was Chief Minister, it was the Kssheerdhare and Kssheerbhagya schemes, as well as the Annabhagya scheme, that made me happy. Gobhakti means giving a licence to sell beef, Modi ji. I implemented the milk subsidy scheme by increasing the milk subsidy by Rs. 5 per litre. As a result, the amount of milk produced on 12/20/2023, which was 45 lakh litres, increased to 73 lakh litres by 2017. We did not reduce the purchase because the milk was free for schoolchildren. This is our style of governance, which has raised cow wealth, farmer wealth, and child wealth.
After the BJP came to power in the state, the stock of milk decreased. Where 99 lakh litres were supposed to be collected, only 71 lakh litres are being collected. Is this a conspiracy by you and Amit Shah against KMF? Pastoralists in villages are crying because KMF is not buying milk. Due to the low collection of milk, about 11 crores of money is lost every day to the farmers. Is this the plan to double the income of your farmers? That stings.
With the entry of Amul into Gujarat state, the demand for Nandini will fall further, and the stock of KMF milk will decrease. Why are you blocking dairy farming, which is the main source of income for farmers in rural areas? After the BJP came to power, there are reports that the beef exports of the Sabhars, Bindras, Jains, and Sharmas have increased to thousands of crores. Whose grace is upon him? He asked.
Our government had given 1,356 crore rupees to farmers in the form of milk subsidies in five years. But the BJP government has done an injustice by providing only Rs. 1200 crore in the budget for 2023–24 while spending Rs. 1186 crore in 2020–21. Animal feed prices have tripled in the last five years. In 2017–18, the price of 49 kg of ash was Rs. It has now increased to Rs. The price of a 30-kg cow has increased from Rs. 400 to Rs. The BJP government in the state has started allocating government-reserved lands to denotified owners, RSS workers, and capitalists. Millions of acres of the Amrit Mahal guard area, the result of Tippu Sultan’s vision, are disappearing, but from whom? Government lands are being given to the RSS at will. There is no place to graze our farmers’ cattle.
