Making no efforts to hide his ire against former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his sons, Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa on Saturday declared that his ‘mission’ from now onwards would be to annihilate Janata Dal(Secular) in Karnataka.
Mr. Yeddyurappa who flew down to Hubli from New Delhi in a special aeroplane after participating in the core committee meeting on Friday, was speaking to press persons at Hubli Airport on Saturday during a brief stopover before flying to Bijapur district.
Judicial probe
Mr. Yeddyurappa vowed to reveal the ‘true colour’ of Mr. Deve Gowda and his sons and announced that the government would include the irregularities in awarding work contracts during Mr. Deve Gowda’s tenure as chief minister in the judiciary inquiry to be conducted by a former Supreme Court justice regarding the alleged irregularities in de-notification of land and allotment of G category sites.
The chief minister announced that within two days a former supreme court justice would be appointed to take up the judicial probe and he would be given six months to submit the report.
Taking a dig at Mr. Deve Gowda’s tactics to topple his government, he said that the former PM had met some of the BJP members of Parliament from Karnataka in New Delhi on Friday and had told them that he would extend all necessary cooperation to allow the BJP government to continue in the State if they changed the party leadership in Karnataka.
The Chief Minister who seemed to be under lot of stress, became emotional and said, “Even if ten such Deve Gowdas come they can’t to overthrow Yeddyurappa. I will continue as the chief minister for the remaining term of the government.”
He said he would see to it that only Congress and BJP remained in the fray in the State politics.
“I will again go back to New Delhi on Monday with all the documents that tell about Deve Gowda and his sons’ misdeeds. I will apprise the party MPs about it and they will in turn raise the issue in the parliament”, he said.
Mr. Yeddyurappa said that the Congress government which was itself caught in multi-crore scams was trying to blow up the issue of allegations against him to divert the attention and save its face.
He said like his family members most of the MLAs and MPs were awarded sites under the G category and land from KIADB. “Although they haven’t got it by unfair means, my family members on their own have decided to handover them back to the government to prevent embarrassment to me”, the Mr. Yeddyurappa said.
No change
He said he had gone to New Delhi to apprise the core committee on what was happening in Karnataka. “I have explained in detail what has happened. During the discussion there was no mention about change in leadership”, he said.
Mr. Yeddyurappa said that he had so far not indulged in ‘Delhi politics’ of making good use of the good rapport with party leadership. “But here afterwards I will also do it”, he said.
To a query, the chief minister said that there was nothing wrong in dreaming about becoming CM. “But let them take the leadership during the elections. Let them get elected by the people as their leader and then stake claim for the post”, he said.
To another query, he clarified that despite the political turmoil he was regularly touring and attending to the grievances of the people. But he declined to comment on the functioning of his cabinet colleagues.
