The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : It is a litmus test for JD(S): Kumaraswamy

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Friday, Mar 06, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

It is a litmus test for JD(S): Kumaraswamy

Special Correspondent

Party to release list only after BJP and Congress announce their candidates

New entrant: Former Minister Nagappa Saloni who joined the Janata Dal (S) greeting State unit president of the party H.D. Kumaraswamy in Bangalore on Thursday. Former Minister Iqbal Ansari looks on.

BANGALORE: Claiming that the list of JD (S) candidates for the coming Lok Sabha elections in Karnataka is ready, former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said the party will announce the names after the BJP and Congress release their respective lists.

Mr. Kumaraswamy, who is also president of the party’s State unit told presspersons that the elections were a “litmus test” for the JD (S). “We have taken it up as a challenge to prove that the party is an alternative to the Congress and BJP”.

Taking exception to certain remarks made by BJP leader M. Venkaiah Naidu against the JD (S) and the proposed Third Front, Mr. Kumaraswamy sought to remind the saffron party leader that it was the JD (S) which had given a fresh lease of life for the BJP, which was floundering in Karnataka. “The BJP should attribute its growth to JD (S),” the former Chief Minister said, claiming that the BJP could grow in the State only due to the association it had with JD (S) in the erstwhile coalition government.

Mr. Kumaraswamy came down on the BJP Government in the State for its all-round failure, particularly on power supply and public distribution system.

He said Mr. Yeddyurappa can’t wash his hands of the deplorable power situation in the State by blaming the earlier Congress governments for not improving the power generation capacity.

He claimed that the State faced scarcity of electricity even when the Congress-JD (S) coalition government was in power and the authorities had managed the situation well.

“It is unfortunate that the BJP Government has not been able to meet the expectations of the people on the power front even in times of recession when several industrial units had stopped production, bringing power consumption drastically”, he said.

Claiming that the public distribution system in the State had gone haywire, Mr. Kumaraswamy said several below poverty line (BPL) card holders in Kanakapura Assembly constituency, which he represents in the Assembly, had not received their regular supply of rice for the last two-and-a-half months.

“I will prove the failure of the PDS system in the State under the BJP regime,” he said.

Earlier, former Minister Nagappa Saloni joined the JD (S) along with his supporters from Koppal district at the party office in the presence of Mr. Kumaraswamy and the newly appointed working president of the JD (S) State unit Iqbal Ansari.

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