Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) supremo H D Deve Gowda, who had only recently announced he was tired of battling the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE), appears to have recharged his batteries.
Declaring that he was ready to take on the company again, Mr Gowda told reporters on Thursday he was not sure if Chief Minister Siddaramaiah could stand up to Energy Minister, D K Shivakumar, who was throwing his weight behind the project.
“I want the Supreme Court to club my petition against NICE along with the contempt case it has filed against the government and continue the hearing," he added. Giving West Bengal CM Mamata Banarjee full credit for her tough stand against the Tatas in Singur, Mr Gowda said while she had managed to get farmers in that state their land back, the two national parties were doing little to help farmers in Karnataka. “People like Kagodu Thimmappa and Ramesh Kumar, who ferociously spoke against the project have become silent after becoming ministers and the legislature committee says it will submit a report within a month. But I know what the outcome will be,'' he added caustically, deploring that NICE had been allowed to collect toll even before completing 20 per cent of the project, when according to the agreement , it was to collect it only after it was fully ready.
