Mangaluru : State BJP President Pralhad Joshi on Thursday said the party would launch a State-wide protest against the Congress government on June 27. We will hold a mega rally in Koppal demanding that Minister for Minor Irrigation Shivaraj M. Tangadagi be dropped, he said.

Senior party leaders including B.S. Yeddyurappa, Jagadish Shettar, K.S. Eshwarappa would attend the rally ‘Tangadagi Hatao, Koppal Bachao,’ in which more than 10,000 people are expected to participate.

It would also hold a padayatra from Bada Ankalagi village in Belagavi district, where a sugarcane grower committed suicide, to Belagavi on June 28 demanding payment of dues to sugarcane growers.

After the issue of sugarcane growers is settled in the State legislature, the party would corner the government on Mr. Tangadagi’s resignation, he said.

Attacking the Congress government on various counts, Mr. Joshi told presspersons here that the law and order situation in the State in general and in Koppal in particular has collapsed.

Mr. Tangadagi has unleashed a reign of terror in Koppal district and the Chief Minister should sack him, he said. On the sugarcane farmers’ issue, Mr. Joshi said the government, ever since coming to power, has utterly failed to get fair price to the growers.

“More than Rs. 1,000 crore is due to farmers for the 2013-14 crushing season. Now, it is the third crushing season. Yet the government is unable to get factories to pay farmers,” he said.

It has taken the “tough” step of seizing sugar stocks in defaulting factories only after BJP upped its protest, Mr. Joshi said.

“Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is becoming more arrogant as the days pass by. When the opposition parties questioned the need for holding Monsoon legislature session in Belagavi as well as Bengaluru, Mr. Siddaramaiah reportedly said that he need not listen to opposition parties,” Mr. Joshi said.

He alleged that the government has sanctioned licences of sand extraction to party functionaries across the State. Sand price has been jacked up substantially and the sand mafia is calling the shots, he said.

State BJP President Pralhad Joshi on Thursday said the Congress government has been following the politics of vengeance, unable to digest party’s onslaught against it. Filing of cases against senior party leader and former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa is nothing but politics of vengeance, he told reporters here.

We will fight these cases legally and politically, he said.