Bengaluru: Taking strong objection to the alleged manhandling of a Janata Dal (S) woman corporator by supporters of Congress MLA, Munirathna in the city, state JD(S) chief, H D Kumaraswamy warned on Saturday that he would be forced to rethink his party’s support for the Congress in the BBMP council if the ruling party legislators or their supporters misbehaved with his party councillors.
Speaking to the Deccan Chronicle, he said it was unbecoming of the MLA’s supporters to manhandle the woman corporator in public for merely questioning a breach of protocol. “The JD(S) councillor has been shamed in public and this cannot be tolerated,” he asserted.
Deploring that the JD(S)- led standing committees of the BBMP were mere showpieces as no files came before them, and all were sent to the Congress legislators and then the state government for approval, he warned, “The Congress party cannot use and dump JD(S) councillors, who were mainly responsible for it coming to power in the urban local body. Funds meant for our party councillors are being diverted to the wards of ruling party members and in the name of development, the Congress is swindling public money for the coming Assembly polls. We will not allow this to happen. I am closely watching the developments and will take an appropriate decision at the right time. And then the Congress will have to repent for its behavior.”
Mr Kumaraswamy was also upset that the Congress party had not convened a coordination committee meeting over the last two years to discuss and decide on projects in the BBMP. While they had agreed to follow the principles of coalition politics when seeking JD(S) support, they had completely forgotten it since, he regretted. "We could have withdrawn support to the Congress giving all these reasons, but then it would have gone on an anti-JD(S) campaign in Bengaluru, which I did not want to happen with the Assembly polls approaching," he explained. Meanwhile, JD(S) MLC, T A Sarawana demanded an unconditional apology from Mr Munirathna for his followers assaulting a woman JD(S) corporator.
