Nirmala Sitharaman and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury at loggerheads over funds for Karnataka

The Lok Sabha on Monday witnessed a sharp exchange between Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury after Mr. Chowdhury alleged discrimination in devolution of funds to Congress-ruled Karnataka and other non-Bharatiya Janata Party ruled States.

Replying to a supplementary question by Mr. Chowdhury during the Question Hour, Ms. Sitharaman said that it is a “politically-vitiated narrative that vested interests are happy to go about saying”.

During the Question Hour, replying to a question by Mr. Chowdhury on the Karnataka government’s claim that the Centre is not releasing funds that are due to them, the Finance Minister asserted that devolution of funds as per recommendations of the Finance Commission.