Senior Congress member K.R. Ramesh Kumar on Friday urged Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to keep himself away from the “band set” of loyalists and family politics to provide clean and effective administration to people of the State.

Speaking on the State Budget proposals, Mr. Kumar said “these ‘band set’ of people were there when Siddaramaiah was the Chief Minister and now they are there around you [Mr. Yediyurappa] and these people make the leader to lose eyesight and also become deaf”.

He said, “People get intoxicated not just by alcohol but also by power which makes their senses ineffective” and the Chief Minister cannot deliver quality administration when panchendriyas (five sense organs) were not properly functioning. Many leaders had lost their jobs because of “band set” around them, the former Speaker said and cautioned the Chief Minister to be careful about the people around him.

Mr. Kumar said he had nothing personal against Mr. Yediyurappa, who was known for straight talk and short-temper, but the Chief Minister’s work culture had been adversely affected by people round him.

Accusing the government of being lax in implementing the Karnataka Private Medical Establishment Act, which was formulated when he was the Health and Family Welfare Minster in the Siddaramaiah government in 2017, the former Speaker said the government should scrap the Act if it was ineffective.

He said the government should have used the provisions of the Act when private hospitals denied admission to patients or failed to handover bodies of the deceased patients to his or her representatives for non-payment of dues during the peak days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

47 speed bumps in 50-km stretch

Mr. Kumar on Friday said there were 47 speed bumps in a 50-km stretch between Hoskote and Chintamani, a road developed under Karnataka State Highway Improvement Project (KSHIP).

He questioned the logic behind erecting 47 speed bumps on the road and appealed to the Public Works Department to seriously look into the issue.