Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday termed comments from Telangana and Tamil Nadu ministers on Karnataka as outbursts arising out of desperation for not getting enough industrial investments into their states.

Karnataka cannot be compared with any other state, the chief minister told media persons, adding that his state has received the highest foreign direct investments (FDI) among all states in each of the past three quarters.

The Telangana and Tamil Nadu ministers were now trying to develop their states in industrial investments. They should invite investors citing their own strengths, but if they invite those in Karnataka by talking ill of the state, that only goes to show they are not getting investors and exposes their own weakness.

“It is not in good taste. I have not invited any investor from Telangana and Tamil Nadu to come and invest in Karnataka. That is our strength. There is a sustained flow of investments and the government has received some big-ticket investment proposals,” Bommai said.

Political leaders from Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have been locked in a war of words after both TN Finance Minister P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) and Telangana IT/BT minister KT Rama Rao made comments about Karnataka. While PTR said many investors from Karnataka have been in touch with the TN government to invest there, Rao asked startups that are not happy with Bengaluru to pack their bags and move over to Hyderabad which has both good physical as well as social infrastructure. The Telangana minister’s comment came in response to a tweet from a SaaS company founder who complained that though the startups in HSR/Koramangala in Bengaluru were earning billions of dollars and paying taxes, they were getting bad roads, power and water in return.