DKS facing trouble now for not acting against BJP misdeeds: HD Kumaraswamy

Bengaluru: Daring central agencies like the IT wing, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and CBI to come anywhere near his house, former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said former Minister D.K. Shivakumar would not have been in jail if he had probed the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) irregularities when Shobha Karandlaje was power minister during the tenure of the previous BJP government.

Speaking at Chennapattana in Bengaluru Rural District on Friday, Mr Kumaraswamy said that he had urged the then Power Minister Mr D.K. Shivakumar to probe the irregularities, but the latter did not pay heed to his demand.

Now, Chief Minister Mr B.S. Yeddyurappa himself had written a letter to IT officials to probe the alleged charges against Mr Shivakumar. The Congress strongman, who tried to save Mr Yediyurappa then, has gone to jail now, Mr Kumaraswamy quipped.

Asserting that he was not scared of the central agencies, Mr Kumaraswamy said that he had neither harmed any officials, nor had any compulsion to continue in politics.

However, seeing hundreds of poor people thronging his house every day, he was forced to do so, Mr Kumaraswamy said.

“To bring down the coalition government, former Chennapattana MLA and BJP leader C.P. Yogeshwar and others spent money like water. No one asked where they got the money from? If we had such money, the coalition partners would have held back the MLAs, who resigned,” Mr Kumaraswamy said. Venting his ire against the media, the former chief minister said that the media, which criticised him during his Grama Vastavya programme, was praising a BJP minister who did the same in a school.

“When I did not attend the rally in Bengaluru in support of Mr Shivakumar, I was portrayed like a villain,” Mr Kumaraswamy recalled. Raking up the death of Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s wife Maithra Devi, Mr Kumaraswamy said that it was not a natural death and no probe was conducted into her death. No one can believe that a person can drown in a sump, which had only one foot of water,” he added.