The Hindu : New Delhi News : Rail projects: Gowda meets Manmohan

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Rail projects: Gowda meets Manmohan

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) president H.D. Deve Gowda on Wednesday called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and took up with him the issue of several railway projects pending completion in Karnataka for nearly a decade.

Speaking to presspersons after the hour-long meeting, Mr. Gowda said that he brought to the attention of the Prime Minister the several projects in Karnataka that had been sanctioned and even included in the Railway budgets since 1996-97 after completing all formalities, but were still languishing for one reason or the other.

He said he had raised the issue earlier in the day also during a meeting of the Railway Standing Committee, of which he is a member. The meeting was called to review the action plan of the Railway Ministry for the Eleventh Plan period.

On whether the possibility of postponement of elections to the Karnataka Assembly figured during the meeting with the Prime Minister, he said the meeting was only about the pending railway projects and no other issue came up for discussion.

About the possibility of a tie-up with the Congress for the polls, he said the Janata Dal (S) would stick to its policy of maintaining equidistance with both the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party, and would go to the polls alone.

Mr. Gowda met the chairman of the Railway Board K.C. Jena and took up the controversy over the recruitment of Class IV employees from Karnataka. “We are talking about Class IV employees. Where is the question of competition on merit,” he said.

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