Mysore/Mysuru: Congress leader K. Harish Gowda distributed  Rs. 10,000 each to the family of over 150 COVID dead persons at a programme organised at Congress Bhavan near City Railway Station here on Thursday.

Speaking after launching the financial assistance distribution programme, Varuna Congress MLA Dr. Yathindra Siddharamaiah said that it is a humane act. 

Pointing out that Harish Gowda and other Congress leaders are doing what the Government should have done in the first place, Dr. Yathindra contended that the BJP Government had failed in checking the spread of the deadly COVID pandemic, which claimed the lives of thousands of people. 

Charging the Government of ignoring the Expert Committee recommendations, Dr. Yathindra criticised former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa for having failed to visit Chamarajanagar when 36 COVID patients died due to shortage of oxygen at Chamarajanagar District Hospital in the first week of May last. But Opposition Leader Siddharamaiah, KPCC President D.K. Shivakumar and a host of other Congress leaders visited Chamarajanagar and offered their condolences besides extending financial support to the affected families, which shows the Congress party’s concerns for the people, he said.

Accusing the BJP Government of  resorting to cheap publicity, the MLA claimed the BJP Governments at the State and the Centre were heartless, at a time when the people of the State and the country were reeling under various problems and burning issues following the outbreak of the pandemic.

Congress leader Harish Gowda, in his address, said that he has distributed more than 60,000 food and ration kits to the poor during COVID crisis and donated Oxygen Concentrators and other medical equipment during the second wave of the pandemic that struck over  four months ago.

Announcing that he was ready to take care of the education of two children who lost their parents due to COVID, Harish Gowda said that though the problems and plight of COVID affected families does not get solved by the Rs. 10,000 financial assistance that he was giving, this monetary assistance is given out of humanity, with a message that the Congress will be with them in future too.

Former Mayors Ayub Khan and B.K. Prakash, Corporators Gopi, Shivakumar and Sreenivas, District Congress President Dr. B.J. Vijaykumar, City President R. Murthy, Congress leaders K. Marigowda, Sunil Bose and others were present.