From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Feb 23: Even before the country has learnt to forget the travails wrought in the aftermath of the November 8, 2016 demonetisation of high value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 worth nearly Rs 15 lakh crore, a senior Congress minister in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet in Karnataka has urged state BJP members to prevail upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise the high value currency notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 issued after the earlier demonetisation.
Karnataka’s Health and Family Welfare minister K Ramesh Kumar, who was also the former speaker of the state Assembly, felt fighting elections has become an expensive affair and fresh demonetisation of the high value currency notes issued by Reserve Bank of India after Modi’s November 8, 2016 decision to enable candidates like him to contest elections.
The Congress minister was speaking in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly on Friday.
Reacting to opposition BJP members’ allegations that Water Resources minister M B Patil has been luring voters in his Babaleshwara constituency in Vijyapura district by distributing saris, helmets, cricket kits and cooking vessels, Ramesh Kumar said distribution of liquor, money and saris was not the monopoly of any one party.
As soon as the House assembled after the lunch, Leader of the opposition Jagadish Shettar and BJP members Visvesvara Hegde Kageri, S Suresh Kumar and other party members displayed a bag used by Patil for distributing gifts ahead of elections to the Assembly.
The BJP members had arguments with the marshals of the house as they were not allowed to take inside the house cricket kits, vessels and saris used by Patil to distribute voters as gifts.
Intervening during the debate, Ramesh Kumar said the presiding officer has every right to deny permission to bring such goods inside the house.
Moreover, the house was not an exhibition to display such goods, the former Assembly speaker said.
With sine die adjournment of the 16th session, the curtains were down for the 14th state legislative Assembly.
Deputy speaker of the Assembly N H Shivashankara Reddy adjourned the house sine die on Friday.
Incumbent members of the Assembly would go for elections scheduled to be held in April-May.
The new Assembly would be convened after the elections in June.