BJP targeting strong Congress leaders: KPCC president DK Shivakumar

BELAGAVI: Hitting out at the BJP for projecting him and party leaders Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi as criminals, KPCC president DK Shivakumar said BJP leaders are harassing those whom it thinks are a threat to their party politically. Speaking to the media in Belagavi for the birthday celebrations of former minister Vinay Kulkarni on Monday, Shivakumar said the BJP targeted all those who were growing stronger politically.

On the murder case in which Kulkarni was one of the accused, Shivakumar said the BJP leadership attempted to hand the case to the CBI, with the intention of fixing him. The state government did so only when investigation was at the fag end, as there was no evidence against Kulkarni, he said.

Reacting to CM Bommai’s statement that an investigation should be taken up into projects launched during his (Shivakumar’s) tenure as energy minister in the previous government, he said, “Let the CM launch an investigation into all projects of the energy and water resources departments.”

Highlighting the lapses of the BJP government, he said he was aware of how a Rs 100-crore project was converted into a Rs 300-crore project, and a Rs 300-crore project was leased out as a Rs 700-crore project.  On  whether BJP leader Janardhan Reddy would join the Congress, Shivakumar said nobody had contacted him on this issue. However, some other leaders were in touch with him, he said.