The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Siddaramaiah hits out at Deve Gowda

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 31, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Siddaramaiah hits out at Deve Gowda

Special Correspondent

‘My meeting with Prakash being viewed as conspiracy’
‘Many leaders paid the price for being with Deve Gowda’

BANGALORE: Refuting the reported allegations that he and his party had been “conspiring” to split the Janata Dal (Secular), Congress leader Siddaramaiah has said that the allegations were only the “expressions of the Janata Dal (S) president H.D. Deve Gowda’s sins and guilt.”

Mr. Siddaramaiah told presspersons here on Tuesday that the Congress could not indulge in such “base politics.” In his 25-year political career he had not even thought of such “criminal deeds” and would never associate with that kind of politics. On the contrary, the political activities of Mr. Gowda since 1962 was “full of contradictions, deceptions and unethical deeds,” he alleged.

Tracing the history of political splits at the party and individual levels in the Janata parivar since 1989, Mr. Siddaramaiah said many leaders in national politics had their own political experiences at the hands of Mr. Gowda.

Mr. Gowda had no serious intention to form the Government.

His only purpose was to secure power to his family members. Many stalwart leaders such as the late Virendra Patil, Ramakrishna Hegde and S.R. Bommai paid a heavy price for having associated themselves with Mr. Gowda, he said.

Asked how he could exonerate himself from all those “murky deeds” he was attributing to Mr. Gowda as he had been with him for over two decades, Mr. Siddaramaiah said he had disassociated with Mr. Gowda at such crucial junctures.

Sympathising with the “plight” of Janata Dal (S) leader M.P. Prakash in his own party, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that he only suggested Mr. Parkash to come out of Mr. Gowda’s grip to protect his self-respect and political dignity.

But Mr. Gowda had viewed the meeting between him and Mr. Prakash as a conspiracy against him.

Comparing the post of Chief Minister and the BJP leader B.S. Yeddiyurappa’s “untiring efforts” to realise his dream to the myth of Vikram and Betal, Mr. Siddaramaiah said that it was a shame he was ready to sacrifice self for the sake of the post.

On the revised efforts of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the BJP forming the Government, he said that keeping MLAs in resorts would amount to horse trading. It was ridiculous that unwilling MLAs were picked forcibly even as they were waiting at bus terminals and railway station to return to their home towns, he said.

Asserting that the Congress was in favour of dissolution of the Legislative Assembly and mid-term elections, the “villainous play unfolded in 2006 for destabilising the Dharam Singh Government will reach its denouement shortly,” he said.

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