Mangaluru : Bharatiya Janata Party will stage a protest in front of the deputy commissioner’s office in Mangaluru on February 20 to urge the Congress-led state government to drop corrupt ministers from the Cabinet, MP Nalin Kumar Kateel said.

Briefing reporters here on Saturday, he said Small Scale Industries Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi should be dropped from the Cabinet in the wake of income tax raids on his house and offices and the Income Tax Department seizing a large amount of unaccounted cash and properties during the raid. The government is mired in corruption, he charged.

According to a diary seized during the raid on an MLC, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has paid Rs 1,000 crore to Congress high command to retain his post. But the Congress is trying to divert the attention of the people by releasing a doctored CD on state BJP president B S Yeddyurappa and Union Minister Ananth Kumar. The Congress is using all tactics to defame the BJP, he alleged.

Stating that pre-poll promises made by the Congress have not been fulfilled, the MP said that the government has failed to take up new programmes for the welfare of the people. Even the welfare programmes initiated by the previous BJP government have been stopped by the Congress. The Congress government is engaged in politics rather than development works. The people of Karnataka have lost faith in the government, he claimed.

The state government has failed to submit a report on drought situation in Karnataka. The Centre has released highest funds to Karnataka to tackle drought, he said.

To a query on toll collection by NHAI without completing the work on service road and flyovers, the MP said that the work on four laning of national highway from Talapady to Kundapura has been taken up on PPP mode. As a result, the toll collection cannot be stopped all of a sudden on the stretch. The new Motor Vehicles Act proposed by the Centre will do away with toll collection in the future, the MP added.

He said that he has written to Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari urging him not to allow collection of toll on the stretch from Talapady to Kundapura till the work on service roads and flyovers at Pumpwell and Thokkottu are complete.