Mysore/Mysuru: In a statement that has put the ruling BJP in discomfiture, Minor Irrigation Minister J.C. Madhuswamy said that the Centre was slowly divesting the States of their powers and encroaching upon the subjects under concurrent list. 

He was speaking at the seminar on ‘ National Integration and Regional Freedom,’ organised by Akhila Bharath Sharana Sahitya Parishat at JSS College for women at Saraswathipuram in the city yesterday.

Maintaining that centralisation of power does not augur well for the country’s unity and also harms the federal structure, Madhuswamy said that  divestment of power also stokes regional sentiments. 

Observing that  only a few districts in every State of the country had witnessed growth and development, he said that this had fuelled the demand for creation of more states and the formation of Telangana is an example for this. Pointing out that education is a State subject, he contended that admission through NEET  for admission to Medical courses had left Kannadigas in the lurch. 

Similarly , job opportunities for kannadigas was limited in Karnataka’s industrial sector, though land was procured from local people and the state provided the necessary infrastructure, he added.