With barely 10 days left for the results of the Lok Sabha election to be announced, the bitter war of words between top two leaders of the coalition — Janata Dal (Secular) State president A.H. Vishwanath and former Chief Minister and coordination committee chairperson Siddaramaiah — failed to let up, despite advice from both parties not to indulge in public spats.
While Mr. Vishwanath on Sunday took exception to the demands by a section of Congressmen for the return of Mr. Siddaramaiah to the Chief Minister’s chair and questioned what he had done while he occupied the place, the latter took to Twitter to lambaste the former on Monday.
Urs comparison
Replying to Mr. Vishwanath’s question on whether he had done anything exceptional on the lines of former Chief Minister the late Devaraj Urs in the last five years, Mr. Siddaramaiah said in a tweet that history will judge him better.
“The present is always cruel to those who do good to people. History testifies to this. People defeated Devaraj Urs, forgetting all his good deeds. Those who were loyal to Urs deserted him. Now Urs’s service to the society is being remembered. Time will answer the remarks stemming from jealousy.”
In a particularly angry response to Mr. Vishwanath’s question on why the strength of Congress had dipped to 78 from 130 if Mr. Siddaramaiah had offered good governance, the latter asserted that he was proud of realising all the promises made in the manifesto during the Assembly polls in 2013 and he would not wish to answer those who make allegations out of helplessness.
In yet another tweet, Mr. Siddaramaiah said it was the need to abide by the “coalition dharma” that had forced him to be silent and he would not respond to every “irresponsible statement” of Mr. Vishwanath. This prompted Mr. Vishwanath also to take to Twitter to remind Mr. Siddaramaiah that it was his followers who raised the issue of becoming the Chief Minister again and that was the first violation of the “coalition dharma.”
Parallelly, some supporters from both sides also added to the ongoing spat. Kupendra Reddy, MP, advised Mr. Siddaramaiah to discuss the issue with the coalition coordination committee and put an end to the barrage of anti-government remarks from his supporters. M.T.B. Nagaraj, who is campaigning in the bypoll, criticised Mr. Vishwanath’s statement. S.T. Somashekhar, another close aide of Mr. Siddaramaiah, also took exception to the JD(S) leader’s statements.
This verbal and Twitter spat comes amidst claims by the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party that the coalition government will fall after the results of the Lok Sabha polls are announced.
