'CM will reply in Assembly to Congress's criticism of budget'

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], July 7 (ANI): Janata Dal (Secular) (JD-S) supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda on Saturday said that Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy will give all necessary details and reply on the budget on the floor of the House.
His statement came following senior Congress leader H K Patil's letter to Kumaraswamy criticising the state budget.
"Chief Minister will give all necessary details and reply on the budget on the floor of the House, then the whole cloud of doubt will be cleared," Deve Gowda told reporters here.
In a letter addressed to Kumaraswamy, Patil aired his discontent over the budget and accused the Chief Minister of ignoring the minorities in the budget.
Patil, a former minister from north Karnataka also urged Kumaraswamy to take corrective measures and announce the same when he responds to the debate on the budget in the Assembly.
"In the 2018 assembly elections, minorities were the reason for our victory. We should have announced at least some initiatives for them in the Budget. There were no new initiatives announced for them," reads the letter.
Patil had stated that people in north Karnataka are disappointed with Congress-JDS coalition government's first budget that had no new plans for development of the region.
"In the 1999-2004 Congress government, 2004-06 Congress-JD(S) coalition government and 2013-18 Congress government there were several initiatives announced for the districts of north Karnataka. It is better if the current coalition government too were to announce a few initiatives for these districts," he said in the letter.
Patil was the Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj in the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government.
Kumaraswamy presented the first budget of his Janata Dal (Secular)-Congress coalition government in the Vidhana Soudha on Thursday.
In the budget, the state government announced a Rs 34,000 crore farm loan waiver while also revealing that it has hiked fuel prices, power tariffs and excise duty on Indian-made alcohol. (ANI)