A political firestorm has broken out in Karnataka after state BJP president Vijayendra Yediyurappa accused the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government of attempting to push through a highly questionable plan to rent mechanical sweeping machines at nearly six times the cost of purchasing them outright. The allegation has sparked a fresh corruption row, with the BJP claiming the proposal reflects deliberate financial misuse rather than any genuine effort to improve urban cleanliness.
Vijayendra said the Congress government was preparing to approve a ₹600-crore rental model, despite two independent expert bodies advising against it. He argued that the decision “defies logic” and appears tailored to enable massive commissions. The BJP leader criticised the government for prioritising a rental plan that would lock the state into long-term, inflated payments for machines that could have been bought for a fraction of that amount.
In a pointed attack on X, he described the move as a “clean sweep of taxpayers’ money”, remarking that there was no guarantee the rented machines would improve street cleaning but absolute certainty that public funds would disappear. He promoted the hashtag #600PercentCommission, accusing the Congress administration of shaping an urban cleanliness programme that “exists only to benefit middlemen.”
Vijayendra further claimed that both the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) and global consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) had recommended against renting mechanical sweepers. They reportedly concluded that renting would be financially reckless, especially given the chronic under-utilisation of existing machines already owned by municipal bodies. Many sweepers procured earlier remain unusable because of poor maintenance and a lack of trained operators.
According to him, the fact that the government ignored these expert findings while pushing ahead with the rental proposal only reinforces suspicions of corruption. He said the Congress administration seemed more interested in procurement-driven expenditure than in improving urban hygiene.
The Congress government has not yet issued an official response. Civic agencies have also not clarified why a rental model was preferred over outright purchase, or whether the expert recommendations were evaluated before advancing the proposal.
Vijayendra concluded that the sweeping-machine controversy fits a broader pattern of “commission-driven governance,” alleging that corruption has become a defining feature of the Siddaramaiah administration.
