The Hindu : Front Page : I am for dissolution: Gowda

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Friday, Nov 23, 2007
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I am for dissolution: Gowda

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: Even as some of his party members have reportedly expressed readiness to work for realigning with the Congress, Janata Dal (Secular) national president H.D. Deve Gowda hinted, to reporters here on Thursday, that he was not for any further realignment.

Mr. Gowda said: “I have already made it clear that I welcome the Union Cabinet’s recommendation for dissolution of the Assembly. Now the issue is before Parliament. The UPA and the BJP are expected to support the dissolution. In such a situation, if somebody wants to form a government, I do not know…”

He also denied reports that he had written a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi offering unconditional support to form a government.

His son and the former Chief Minister, H.D Kumaraswamy, took exception to BJP leader B.S. Yeddyurappa’s claims that it was he who made him (Mr. Kumaraswamy) the Chief Minister.

He said: “I did not go to him with an application. He came to me 20 months ago saying that he is tired of the BJP. He requested me to make him a Minister in our party government.”

Mr. Kumaraswamy claimed that though the BJP had 79 MLAs, the party failed to put up a good performance in the Zilla Panchayat elections in 2005. At that juncture, 30 of its legislators were about to join the JD(S). “I saved the BJP from splitting. Mr. Yeddyurappa should remember this. It is not the BJP central leaders, but me who made him the deputy Chief Minister 20 months ago.”

Earlier, without naming Mr. Yeddyurappa, Mr. Gowda said; “He had come to my house long ago with a request that he should be made a Minister. Now he says that it was he who made Kumaraswamy Chief Minister.”

BJP warned

Mr. Gowda and Mr. Kumaraswamy on Thursday warned the BJP that it would have to face the repercussions if it did not restrain itself from behaving in an “indecent and obscene manner” in its ongoing protests against the JD(S).

“We are not going to sit quietly if the BJP leaders continue such protests. The time is not far off when we may have to take to the streets. I will not sit at home,” Mr. Gowda told reporters at his residence here.

“The BJP leaders say that theirs is a party of discipline. But, let them first learn to maintain some basic decorum. They want to follow the Gujarat model of development for Karnataka…”

“Kumaraswamy is Gowda’s son. He has the strength to face these protests. Has he not built the party cadre in the last 20 months? The BJP should know that if he gives a call…the situation will be totally different. But we will not stoop to the level of the BJP,” he said.

Replying to queries, Mr. Gowda said the ongoing BJP campaign would not affect his party’s morale. “I have seen it all in my political life. It is nothing new.”

In a press release, the BJP appealed to its leaders and workers to desist from burning effigies and garlanding them with footwear, during the ongoing protests.

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