Bengaluru: Ahead of the Karnataka Assembly polls, now barely two months away, the ruling Congress and the Opposition JD(S), the only ally the Congress can look to in case of a fractured mandate, have upped the ante against each other.
A day after Congress president Rahul Gandhi described Mr Deve Gowda’s party as the ‘B’ team of the BJP, JD(S) state president H.D. Kumaraswamy hit back remarking that if he stood by the BJP, the Congress would be wiped out in Karnataka.
Mr Kumaraswamy stunned all claiming his bête noire, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, had got the Congress president to address a series of meetings in Karnataka only to jeopardise the CM prospects of the party’s leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge or KPCC president Dr G Parameshwar, if the Congress needs JD(S) support in case of a hung Assembly. "This is a game plan by Siddaramaiah to annoy the JD(S) so much that it does not support the Congress in case of an indecisive verdict."
At a public meeting at Magadi town in Ramanagara, Mr Kumaraswamy went to the extent of dubbing Mr Gandhi a 'caged parrot' of Siddaramaiah who utters whatever he is tutored to do.
