Bengaluru: The marriage of convenience between the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka has hit yet another rock. Not rock bottom yet, but the ties are sinking. After Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy threatened to resign a couple of days back, fed up with Congress party’s bullying tactics, his father and JD(S) supremo Deve Gowda has broken his silence.
On Thursday, Gowda Sr took off his kid’s gloves in dealing with the Congress and said point blank: “I am in pain. Six months have (been) completed since Kumaraswamy became Chief Minister. All kinds of things have happened in these 6 months, till now I have not opened my mouth but I can’t keep quiet now.” He, however, did not reveal what he has in mind, but surely a storm is brewing.
The former PM’s caustic remark came amid reports that his son Kumaraswamy is still upset with the alleged interference in his work by the Congress. Gowda Sr had brushed it aside earlier saying it was a minor issue, but on Thursday, he did not hide his anger when he said: “Is this any way to run a coalition government, where every day you have to request your coalition partner to not give un-parliamentary remarks?”
The Congress just loves to needle Kumaraswamy and upset him. This is seriously affecting governance and the Congress is trying to make a point that Kumaraswamy is a failure and that real progress was under the leadership of former CM and arch rival of HDK, Siddaramaiah.
In fact, on Sunday, Congress MLA ST Somashekhar openly demanded that Congress leader Siddaramaiah be made chief minister again if Karnataka wants to see progress. Somashekhar had claimed that development works had come to a grinding halt all over the state.
Following this, Kumaraswamy threatened to put in his papers saying “If they repeatedly make such statements, how many more days can I tolerate such stuff. Power is ephemeral. What is permanent is you (party workers) and six-and-a-half crore people of this state.”