Bengaluru : Food and Civil Supplies Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao on Thursday accused the Opposition parties of attempting to create a ‘black mark’ on the Karnataka Government with all ‘wild and baseless’ allegations that their phones were being tapped.
“These are all wild and baseless allegations to divert the people’s attention. Somehow, they are trying to create a ‘black mark’ on our government because in the last three years they have not been able to pinpoint anything or on any corruption issue,” Gundu Rao told ANI here.
“They don’t want the government to function. They are just wasting time and they stand completely exposed,” he added.
Gundu Rao further said it is unfortunate that the Opposition leaders in the state are least interested in discussing serious issues.
“Karnataka is facing so many problems like drinking water issue, farmers issue, especially drought, we have also declared the Rabi crop as a failure.so, many issues to discuss and people are expecting that we will discuss these things,” said Gundu Rao.
“Unfortunately for the last three days, it has been held hostage on stupid watch issue which is completely irrelevant,” he added.
The Opposition leaders in Karnataka have alleged that their phones were being tapped at the behest of the state government.
JD(S) state president H. D. Kumaraswamy had earlier said his phones are under surveillance after he started tracing the genesis of the expensive Hublot wrist watch.
Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly, Jagadish Shettar, had also accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of tapping phones of opposition leaders after they started questioning about the watch.
The controversial episode of Siddaramaiah receiving an expensive watch as gift resulted in commotion in both the Houses of the state legislature earlier on Tuesday.
The ruling and the Opposition members indulged in war of words as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) insisted on debating the issue through an adjournment motion that has censuring provisions.
Siddaramaiah yesterday handed over his diamond-studded Hublot watch to legislative assembly speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, along with a letter asking him to make it a state asset. (ANI)