Bengaluru: Unhappy Congress leaders of Mandya may have been silenced by former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah from speaking out against Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, but this did not stop Janata Dal (Secular) legislators from launching an attack of their own on Saturday against them for violating the "coalition dharma" during the Lok Sabha polls.
A day after former Congress legislator of Mandya, Cheluvarayaswamy launched a frontal attack on the Chief Minister asking him to mend his ways, Janata Dal (Secular) MLA Sureshgowda of Nagamangala minced no words in hitting back at him. “Cheluvarayaswamy has always worked against the party's official candidate for selfish reasons. He worked for Ramya aka Divya Spandana, a Congress candidate, instead of the JD(S) official candidate, C S Puttaraju the last election and in the recently-held Lok Sabha polls, he and his team worked for Ms Sumalatha Ambareesh, an independent, defying his own party's diktat,” he charged.
K R Pet Janata Dal (Secular) MLA, Narayanagowda went a step ahead and contended that the Janata Dal (Secular) should have fought the Lok Sabha elections on its own, instead of in alliance with the Congress party. “Right from the start, the defeated Congress legislators have been against the CM due to their personal rivalry and it came to the fore during the LS polls. All of them stayed away from campaigning for a silly reason that they were not consulted while finalising the Mandya candidate. But despite their lack of cooperation, Nikhil(Kumaraswamy) will win by a big margin," he declared.
Strongly reacting to Mr Narayanagowda's statement, Mr Siddaramaiah said the decision to jointly face the LS election was taken after a meeting with Janata Dal (Secular) supremo H D Deve Gowda and Mr Kumaraswamy and he was not a big enough leader to be consulted.
