Bengaluru: In the middle of exchange of calls for Congress-free and BJP-free Karnataka heard in either camp, a third voice has emerged, that of H D Kumaraswamy, Janata Dal (Secular) leader and former chief minister of the state.
Addressing mediapersons in Vidhana Soudha on Monday, he accused both Congress and the BJP of looking for political gains while disregarding the interests of the state.
He said that both the parties had been clamouring for ‘Congress-free Karnataka’ and ‘BJP-free Karnataka’ and were engaged in mud-slinging at each other. But the people of the state had already been witness to the kind of corruption that they both had indulged in. The state had to be ridden of both of them which were playing hide-and-seek theatrics.
He pointed out that the people of the state had given a mandate to the BJP for seven years and made it Congress-free, much before BJP national president Amit Shah took over the reins of the party. What the BJP achieved during its rule was in wide gaze of everyone. Shah should understand how and why the Congress party was brought back to power.
Continuing his attack on the BJP, Kumaraswamy wanted to know, when that party kept speaking about principle-based politics, what kind of politics it was following in Jammu-Kashmir. During the run-up to the state elections there, during the campaign, PM Narendra Modi himself was talking about redeeming the state from the dynastic rule of two families, which, according to him, had looted the state.
Ironically enough, exercises were currently in progress to form a government with the help of either of the two parties, National Conference (NC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Kumaraswamy wanted to know as to what state the BJP had landed in, when the very same party was ridiculing the JD(S) as one that would go along with anyone for the sake of convenience and benefit.