Karnataka - Bangalore

Congress not to join State delegation

BANGALORE: The Opposition Congress on Tuesday decided to opt out of the all-party legislators and MPs’ delegation to be taken by Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to Delhi on November 5 to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to persuade him to sanction various demands of Karnataka, including according classical language status to Kannada and special status to Hyderabad Karnataka.

Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council V.S. Ugrappa, at a joint press conference on Tuesday, alleged that the Chief Minister was only trying to politicise the issue ahead of the byelections to the Legislative Assembly and general elections to the Lok Sabha.

Mr. Kharge charged the Chief Minister with adopting a “divide-and-rule policy.”

“It is the right of the political parties to decide which of their legislators should be part of the delegation to be taken out by the Chief Minister. But, Mr. Yeddyurappa has started contacting some of our legislators individually to persuade them to join the delegation instead of contacting the legislature party leadership,” Mr. Kharge alleged.

He said Congress legislators Ramalinga Reddy and Narayanaswamy had been contacted by the Chief Minister. If Mr. Yeddyurappa really wanted to take all the legislators with him to Delhi, he should convene a legislature session and adopt a one-line resolution in this regard after a thorough discussion on the issue and the composition of the delegation, Mr. Kharge said. Pointing out that the issue of granting classical language status to Karnataka was in the final stages of clearance, he said it was not proper to make an issue out of it.

Similarly, the Centre had suggested that it would be better to seek a Vidharbha model of development for Hyderabad Karnataka instead of the demand for special status. But the earlier delegations had felt that Telangana model was better.

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