Hassan: Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Sunday said that State BJP president and former CM B.S. Yeddyurappa had a grudge against his family andwanted Mr Yeddyurappa to learn lessons from former PM and BJP leader A.B. Vajpayee.
The grudge could be because of the denial of support to Mr Yeddyurappa when it was his turn to become CM of a JDS-BJP coalition government in 2007. Mr H.D. Kumaraswamy became Chief Minister with the support of the BJP in 2006 and as per the arrangement between the two parties, Yeddyurappa was to assume charge as CM afer Kumaraswamy but the JD(S) imposed several conditions for Yeddyurappa to continue as CM which infuriated him and made him resign.The grudge started with this, he explained.
At a function in Hassan, Mr Gowda told the gathering that Mr Yeddyurappa hurriedly took oath as Chief Minister again a few months ago despite having the support of only 104 MLAs clearly falling short of a majority on the floor of the Assembly while the JD(S)-Congress coalition had 118 MLAs after the 2018 elections. When Yeddyurappa failed to prove his majority, his son H D Kumaraswamy became Chief Minister but the grudge continued. Drawing a comparison with a similar scenario faced by Atal Behari Vajpayee in 1996, Gowda recalled that Vajpayee lasted 13 days in office as Prime Minister as he could not prove his majority in the House and had to step down.
“I was PM for 10 and a half months and Vajpayee was in the Opposition but he never brought disrepute to the House or came in the way of the running of the government. Mr Yeddyurappa hails from such a party,” Mr Gowda said while asking the BJP chief to behave properly and not nurse a grude against the Deve Gowda family just because he could not remain in power.
