Gowda, Siddaramaiah blame eachother for coalition govt. collapse

Bengaluru: Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and ex-Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Friday held each other responsible for the collapse of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government in the state.

It must be noted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power in Karnataka after the coalition lost a trust vote in July after 17 of its MLAs submitted their resignations.

Hindustan Times quoted Gowda as saying, “[Congress president] Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi erred in not consulting Siddaramaiah before naming HD Kumaraswamy as the chief minister of the coalition government.” He said Siddaramaiah “could not digest” the Congress’s move to name Kumaraswamy as the chief minister without consulting him.

On the other hand Siddaramaiah blamed Gowda and his sons, Kumaraswamy and HD Revanna, for the coalition’s collapse. He said, “All the allegations made by Deve Gowda are far from the truth and made to gain political mileage.”

He added, “If they [Kumaraswamy, Revanna, and Gowda] had taken everybody into confidence and worked for the development of their constituencies, there would not have been any dissidence.”

Claiming that none of the recommendations of the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coordination committee he headed were acted upon Siddaramaiah said. “He [Kumaraswamy] used to agree to them but never acted upon them. But I never spoke about this because the high command had asked us to support them for five years.”

Blaming Gowda and Kumaraswamy for the BJP’s rise in Karnataka, Siddaramaiah said Gowda had forgotten that the two leaders had campaigned together during the Lok Sabha polls. He said, “It is true that I had suggested to the high command that we go in for a friendly fight rather than contest together. But it is incorrect for him to blame me for his loss in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said. “If that is the case, then who can we blame for the losses of our candidates in other constituencies?”