Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said the President’s speech copy was not prepared by the state government.
“We neither prepared the speech copy nor sent to any note to the Rashtrapathi Bhavan,’’ Siddaramaiah said.
The chief minister was answering a query on President Ramnath Kovind mentioning Tipu Sultan’s name and forgetting the name of former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda while addressing the joint session of the legislature to mark the diamond jubilee of Vidhana Soudha.
Stating that it was not the speech prepared for the Governor to address the joint session of the legislature, the chief minister said the state government prepares the speech copy for the governor. “It was the President’s speech. The President told the truth. Some people are making it a controversy. It is unfortunate and deserves to be condemned,’’ the chief minister said.
Reacting to BJP leaders’ allegation on the preparation of speech copy based on the information provided by the Secretariat, the chief minister has reiterated that no information or a note was sent by the Chief Secretary or Secretariat of even by the government.
“BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa took an oath in the name of Allah stating that he would not return to the BJP from Karnataka Janata Paksha. He has forgotten about it. Jagadish Shettar, who wrote a foreword for the book on Tipu Sultan by Prof. B. Shaik Ali showering praises on Tipu Sultan, now describes him as anti-Hindu and anti-Kannada. I wonder whether they have double standards on Tipu Sultan,’’ he said.
On the deletion of former prime minister Deve Gowda’s name from the speech copy, he said the President would have forgotten to mention Deve Gowda’s name. “The President has not done it deliberately,’’ he said.
