Impending polls to weigh on Chief Minister Bommai’s Karnataka budget on Friday

Bommai, though only seven-month-old as chief minister, has been hands-on about Karnataka’s finances as he represented the state in the GST Council when BS Yediyurappa was the chief minister.

He has a tough job on hand because the state is scheduled to face the assembly polls early next year and the government’s budget next year will look more like an election manifesto. The new regime will present a realistic budget post-election.

Karnataka’s economy has been looking up and is expected to see much better growth in the coming months as new Covid-19 cases have plummeted. As per the numbers released by the Ministry of Finance, Karnataka’s monthly gross GST revenues in February this year jumped to Rs 9176 crore from Rs 7581 crore in the same month last year. This represents a healthy 21% growth as against the national average of 18%. The state’s revenues from liquor sales and property registrations too are on course, bringing some cheer to Bommai.

But he has been under great pressure to provide enough funds for Bengaluru city’s roads and to fix drains and drinking water and support big-ticket infrastructure projects. The city corporation, BBMP, is due for polls anytime. The BJP has little or no choice but to win the civic polls in Bengaluru as a rout here will mean decline of the BJP in urban areas, lifting the Congress party’s morale further. The party, led by senior leaders DK Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah, has been leading an aggressive campaign against the BJP in preparation for next year’s assembly elections, and is claiming every small electoral success as a signal for a big electoral win next year.

Bommai hails from Mumbai-Karnataka belt, the region that rewarded the BJP with maximum number of seats in 2018 assembly elections, bringing it closer to the half-way mark. As son of the region’s soil, the chief minister will have to respond to the region’s demands as a gesture of gratitude as well.

Bommai is also in the forefront, like most others, in demanding that the Centre compensate the State for losses in the GST revenues for three more years citing the drop in revenues and a sharp increase in expenditure, all due to Covid-19. The Centre, according to Bommai, compensated for GST losses by way of loans in the last two years. He has asked for the same treatment from the Centre, suggesting that collections from the GST cess could fund loan repayments.