Mysuru: Senior Congress Leader and Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah exuded confidence that the party’s two candidates will make it to the Rajya Sabha comfortably.
Speaking to mediapersons here on Monday June 6 he said, “As we have fielded a minority candidate, we are likely to get JDS votes also. He said, “If H. D. Kumaraswamy doesn’t want the BJP candidate to win, he should ask his party ( JD (S) ) candidate to withdraw his nomination and support our candidate. Ours is a secular party. When Former Prime Minister and JD (S) Supremo H. D. Deve Gowda contested, we helped him win. We supported the JD (S) to form government in the State even when they had only 37 MLAs. We did not want to allow the BJP to come to power. Deve Gowda could not have become Prime Minister if Congress had not supported him.”
Slamming C. M. Ibrahim who joined JD (S) recently, Siddaramaiah said, he was expecting to make it to the Legislative Council on a JD (S) ticket but has become the party president which is a useless post. Training his guns on Kumaraswamy, the Congress leader said, Time and again, he blames us for the fall of his government. But what he said in the Assembly is totally different. He says Congress Leaders harassed him when he was at the helm of affairs. “The whole world knows what the truth is.”
He said, Congress is committed to the Constitution and accordingly, works for the upliftment of the Dalits. Turning his attention to the controversy surrounding the textbook revision, he said, “Lessons on Kuvempu, Basavanna, Narayana Guru and Bhagat Singh have been deleted. Are they not Hindus? I advise the government to follow what Baraguru Ramachandrappa has advocated.”
Siddaramaiah also hit out at Mysuru – Kodagu BJP Member of Parliament Prathap Simha for questioning his contribution to Mysuru region. “I want to know if at all he has contributed anything to Mysuru. I can give a list of what all I did as the Chief Minister.”
