Bengaluru,  7 Jan

The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday described Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah as the “biggest borrowing CM”, citing reports that the state is likely to raise loans worth Rs 93,000 crore during the January–March quarter.

The criticism came on the same day Siddaramaiah, who also holds the finance portfolio, became Karnataka’s longest-serving Chief Minister.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R Ashoka accused the Congress government of “failing Karnataka” and said that time spent in office was merely a statistic, while governance would be judged by the legacy left behind.

“Siddaramaiah is not the longest-serving CM, but the biggest borrowing CM,” Ashoka said.

In a post on X, he added, “The difference between a statistic and a legacy is this  the title of longest-serving CM is just a statistic. The title of biggest borrowing CM is a legacy. One will be forgotten, the other permanently remembered in Karnataka’s history books.”

Calling the borrowing estimate staggering, Ashoka said Rs 93,000 crore raised in a single quarter would be the largest Q4 loan haul by any state in India, terming it panic-driven financial management rather than governance.

He alleged that the debt surge was due to structural fiscal stress, with fresh loans being raised to repay earlier borrowings, fund welfare guarantee schemes and address cash-flow shortages caused by what he described as poor economic planning.

“When a government is forced to borrow an average of Rs 31,000 crore every month just to stay afloat, it is not a sign of strength but a clear indicator of fiscal stress,” he said.

Ashoka further said that while records fade with time, the legacy of mounting debt, inefficiency and a mortgaged future for Karnataka would remain.