The Hindu : Front Page : I will nail the BJP’s lie, says Deve Gowda

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Thursday, Oct 18, 2007
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I will nail the BJP’s lie, says Deve Gowda

S. Rajendran

“They attempted to ride on the shoulders of Kumaraswamy and have since been exposed”

H.D. Deve Gowda

BANGALORE: The former Prime Minister and national president of the Janata Dal (Secular), H.D. Deve Gowda has lashed out at the BJP and said the party tried to use the JD(S) to launch itself in the south.

Mr. Gowda told The Hindu here on Wednesday that the BJP, which initially won over H.D. Kumaraswamy and a large section of the JD(S) legislators in January 2006, believed that it could carry forward with its designs. “They attempted to ride on the shoulders of Mr. Kumaraswamy and have since been exposed. So long as I am alive, no such thing can happen. I will nail the BJP’s lie.”

Fortunately, the BJP plan to head a government in Karnataka could not succeed and its “hidden agenda” resulted in the collapse of its relationship with the JD(S).

Apparently upset at the “Dharma Yudh” campaign unleashed by the BJP on the power transfer issue, Mr. Gowda said it would take a long time for the BJP to recover since there was a vertical divide within that party which was also the root cause for the failure of the power-sharing talks. “It is not a Dharma Yudha but an Adharma Yudha. They have labelled the JD(S) and in particular Mr. Kumaraswamy as a “Vachana Brushta” (violator of commitments). In reality, it is the BJP which is a Vachana Brushta since it never cared to abide by the Karnataka development programme.”

Mr. Deve Gowda said:

“The central BJP leader in charge of Karnataka, Yashwant Sinha, never really cared to pursue the power-sharing talks seriously. I brought to his notice several important points. In particular, I referred to the legislation for taking charge of the Bangalore Mysore Expressway project which was thwarted by the then Deputy Chief Minister prior to the Cabinet meeting scheduled for June 13, 2006, the Rs.150-crore bribery allegation made against Mr. Kumaraswamy on July 6, 2006, the aggressive postures of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar organisations in connection with the Datta Peeta programmes and the communal violence in Mangalore in October and November of 2006, the attack on a Tamil Nadu bus and on the house of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s daughter in Bangalore on September 18, 2007 and, finally, the attempt-to-murder case against Mr. Kumaraswamy by a Cabinet Minister.

“Mr. Yashwant Sinha promised to rush to Delhi and get back with a reply but stayed on in Bangalore for another three days. I also sought a meeting in the presence of Rajnath Singh, L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, B.S. Yediyurappa, Ananth Kumar, D.V. Sadananda Gowda of the BJP, on one side, and H.D. Kumaraswamy and M.P. Prakash of the JD(S), on the other. Even this was not complied with.”

Mr. Gowda said that several top BJP leaders, including Mr. Venkaiah Naidu and Mr. Ananth Kumar, had “conspired” to lure Mr. Kumaraswamy “behind my back” to form the JD(S)-BJP coalition government in Karnataka. Obviously, they were aware that “I would not relent to their pressure. When I headed the National Front Government at the Centre and when the Congress decided to withdraw its support, the BJP offered me support. Even at that point of time I turned down the offer since I am against such ideologies.”

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