Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Congress strong enough to face bypolls on its own’

Siddaramaiah

Bangalore: Senior Congress leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said the party was strong enough to face the byelections on its own and there was no need for it to align with any other outfit.

Speaking to presspersons here, he said the Congress had a history and it was growing stronger by the day.

Mr. Siddaramaiah said that M. Mallikarjun Kharge was selected by the observers to be the Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly after eliciting views of the MLAs. He made it clear that he was never after that post.

“I am not inactive and am I not feeling uncomfortable in the party,” he added.

On his reported disappointment over being ignored for the KPCC top post, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the party high command in its wisdom appointed R.V. Deshpande as Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president.

The former Deputy Chief Minister denied that he was offered the post of chairman of the National Backward Classes Commission and promised to be made permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee, highest policy-making body of the party.

Mr. Siddaramaiah, who has been maintaining a low profile for sometime, denied that he was deliberately abstaining from meetings.

He said that even the former Chief Minister S.M. Krishna had not attended them.

When asked when he would start visiting the KPCC office, Mr. Siddaramaiah, chairman of the Campaign Committee of the KPCC, said: “Whenever necessary.”

On the suggestion of U.R. Ananthamurthy, writer, that the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Congress should have an alliance to defeat the Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Siddaramaiah said it was his (Dr. Ananthamurthy’s) view.

Such an idea had been shot down by president of the Janata Dal (S) H.D. Deve Gowda and the former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Mr. Siddaramaiah said and added that the question had become irrelevant now.

He said the Janata Dal (S) lost ground in the Assembly elections and its strength in the House had come down.

Mr. Siddaramiah rubbished the remarks made against many Janata Dal leaders by Mr. Deve Gowda in an interview to a Kannada daily and said it was unbecoming of him to make statements about people who had passed away.

The treatment Mr. Deve Gowda meted out to them and many others, who left the party during in the past several years, showed what kind of a person he was Mr. Siddaramaiah added.

B.R. Patil, former Deputy Chairman of the Legislative Council; M. Krishnappa, former Minister, and P. Kodandaramaiah, former MP, were present.

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