Bengaluru: Janata Dal (S) chief H.D. Kumaraswamy believes his party’s attempts to strike a deal with the BJP for the coming Rajya Sabha and legislative council polls failed because energy minister, D K Shivakumar had arrived at an arrangement with BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa.
Speaking to reporters here on Monday, Mr Kumaraswamy claimed the Yeddyurappa faction was taking the Congress’ help to ensure the victory of its second candidate in the legislative council election, and had in turn agreed to help the Congress get the votes of smaller parties for its third Rajya Sabha candidate.
“Our party has numbers and it is the Congress, which is trying to break our votes. If they were confident of having the numbers themselves why have they taken these MLAs to Mumbai? This means they are not confident of getting all the votes ,'' Mr Kumaraswamy said, adding, “When the independents signed as proposers for the JD(S) candidates, they were no fools. However, within a day, they came before the media and said that they were supporting the Congress. Both the energy minister and the Congress’ third candidate spoke about hundreds of crores of developmental work being taken up in their constituencies. We are not in a position to allot them such funds.''
When asked what his party had offered the independents for their support, Mr Kumaraswamy said he had merely requested them to back the JDS. “The independents had complained that the Chief Minister had not allotted any funds for their constituencies for the last three years and I told them that if the Congress candidate was defeated, the government could concentrate more on doing a good job of governance,'' he claimed.
On JD(S) workers staging a protest in front of Mr Zameer Ahamed Khan's house, Mr Kumaraswamy said he had appealed to them not to resort to such tactics and instead visit villages and reach out to farmers, who could then join the party. “But the party will be taking action against the rebels at the June 12 meeting convened by Mr Deve Gowda. However prominent they may be, we are taking action against them on that day,'' he asserted.
