CM: Committed to guarantees, Cabinet will decide on June 2

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Asserting that his government will implement the five poll 'guarantees' promised ahead of the assembly polls, Karnataka Chief Minis - ter Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said officials have shared their inputs on financial implications, and the cabinet will meet on June 2 to decide on the implementation.

The cabinet meeting was earlier scheduled for June 1. In view of the implementa - tion of guarantees, the Chief Minister today held a meeting with all the Ministers and senior officials of the concerned departments at Vidhana Soudha, the seat of state secretariat and legislature, here.

"We had given five guaran - tees to the people, regarding these five guarantees con - cerned officials and finance department officials have made a presentation together. All the Ministers have seen the presentation, it has all the de - tails -- proposals and financial implications of the implemen - tation," Siddaramaiah said.

Speaking to reporters here after the meeting, the CM said, "we have not discussed in to - day's meeting, discussion and decision will be on the day after. On Friday at 11 AM, I have convened the cabinet meeting, where we will discuss, and after that our decision will be made known to you." "But, the government has taken a call to implement all the five guarantees. It is a guar - antee that we will implement the guarantees," he added.

The Congress had promised to implement the ‘guarantees' - 200 units of free power to all households (Gruha Jyoti), Rs 2,000 monthly assistance to the woman head of every family (Gruha Lakshmi), 10 kg of rice free to every member of a BPL house - hold (Anna Bhagya), Rs 3,000 every month for unemployed graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for unemployed diploma holders (both in the age group of 18-25) (YuvaNidhi), and free travel for women in public transport buses (Shakti), on the very first day of assuming power in the state.

There is mounting pressure on the new government from opposition parties and various sections of people from across the state, to fulfill its five guarantees as promised ahead of polls. Asked whether the five guarantees will be implemented at once or one after the other, the CM said, "All those things have not been de - cided yet, it will be dis - cussed and decided in the cabinet."

To a query about BJP's criticism, he said, "let BJP (central govt) fulfill whatever they had promised, before questioning us. We will implement what we had promised, we had imple - mented earlier too, we will do it even now." Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar told media that officials shared inputs in today's meeting and also gave four to five options regarding the implementation of the guarantees, and what would be the financial impact.

"We are committed to imple - menting the guarantees, no doubts on that. Following offi - cials sharing their opinion and inputs, some of us (Ministers) have also shared our view, and we have asked officials to re - work and present it before the cabinet. As they sought time, there is no cabinet tomorrow, it has been postponed by a day -- to Friday. We will discuss and let you know."

Appealing to people to avoid any kind of "gossip" on this matter, Shivakumar said the state government is aware of the promises made by the Congress ahead of elections and also the financial impli - cations. "We are discussing everything."