He clearly believes the best way to win farmers’hearts is through their love for cattle. Mining baron turned politician, Santosh Lad has come up with the novel idea of giving buffaloes and cows to villagers of his constitutency in the hope they will repay him by voting for him in the next assembly poll.
The Congress MLA is distributing 10,000 buffaloes and cows to poor landless families to keep his votebank in his Kalghatagi constituency intact . He hopes to cover all deserving families by December this year and is doing everything he can to help them go into the dairy business, even drawing up a plan to set up a mini dairy on the lines of the Karnataka Milk Federation in the area to avoid any problems with marketing they may have.
He also intends to appoint veterinarians to look after the cattle and establish a separate fodder bank to provide nutritious feed to the animals. While the MLA will foot 25 per cent of the cattle price, the villagers will get a subsidy for an equal amount. They will, however, have to pay the remaining amount ,which will be repaid in instalments. “I want to encourage self-employment, Developing Kalghatagi constituency is my only motto," Mr Lad declares.
Although largely inaccessible to the people for the last two years , the MLA has swung into action of late, distributing scholarships and admission fees to over 4,000 students, sinking thousands of borewells at his own expenditure and donating several borewell drilling rigs and vehicles for public use. But his latest move to provide villagers with buffaloes and cows has angered Opposition leaders who see it is as an election gimmick. “Lad is only trying to pacify voters ahead of the Assembly elections as he has not fulfilled their need for lift-irrigation and for de-silting of the 500 lakes in the constituency,” charged Mr C M Nimbannavar, who lost the last elections to the MLA.