Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah upped his attack on Janata Dal (Secular) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy on Tuesday by accusing him of putting up a show of support of the BJP government to prevent defections from his party to the BJP.
The Congress leader told media persons in Sambra Airport that some JD(S) MLAs were planning to join the BJP. “To retain them in his party, Mr. Kumaraswamy is trying to praise the B.S. Yediyurappa government. He hopes that if he says good things about the BJP, his own legislators will stay put,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
Mr Siddaramaiah brushed aside allegations that he was trying to dislodge the Yediyurappa government. “Mr. Kumaraswamy has alleged that I am trying to pull down the Yediyurappa government. That is not true. It’ss only the family members of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda who get ideas of dislodging governments. People like us don’t harbour such thoughts,” Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
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“I have not said that I will bring down the government. I said that if the BJP does not win majority seats in the bypolls, the Yediyurappa government will collapse. I am not planning to conspire against the government or reduce them to a minority and then face polls,” he said.
“Mr. Kumaraswamy has been complaining about other Chief Ministers, but he wasted his opportunity of serving the people when he was the Chief Minister. I introduced pro-people schemes like Anna Bhagya. But Mr. Kumaraswamy has not much to claim credit,” he said.
He dismissed as false, Mr. Kumaraswamy’s allegations that the Congress did not give him a free hand to run the administration. “If he was so upset with us, why did he continue as Chief Minister for 14 months?” he questioned.
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“The State government has failed in flood relief. It has neither constructed houses for the poor, nor rebuilt damaged school buildings. Farmers who lost crops have not got compensation. The government has not even carried out a fool-proof survey of the flood damage,” he said.