52 members, including Basavegowda, join Congress

Opposition leader in the legislative Assembly Siddaramaiah said if Congress comes to power in the state, a special court would be constituted to probe into corruption and scandals of the BJP government.

Addressing party workers at a programme to welcome 52 members, including C Basavegowda, into the party fold at Jayamma Govindegowda choultry in city on Monday, he alleged that the BJP had made the government exchequer poorer by Rs one lakh crore in its four-year tenure.

Earlier, the government had a debt of Rs 55,000 crore. It had escalated to Rs 1.18 lakh crore by March. 

The government has to repay a debt of Rs 9,700 crore, including principle and interest amount every year.

Citing the names of several BJP leaders who have been jailed, he ridiculed G Janardhan Reddy, who enjoyed the luxuries of eating from golden plates and spoons is now eating from aluminium plate in jail.

Siddaramaiah did not spare the JD(S) party too. “ JD(S) is neither a political party nor a regional party, it is a family party,” he ridiculed. Kumaraswamy is dreaming of becoming a chief minister again. The JD(S) had secured 28 seats in 2008, but will not secure more than that in the forthcoming elections, he predicted.

He recalled the financial constraints he faced  when he contested elections in 1983, when he did not even have money to pay the deposit. He said he had turned emotional when he had to contest from Varuna Assembly constituency leaving Chamundeshwari constituency. 

The JD(S) party bigwigs had descended on Mysore spending crores of rupees but could not defeat me and thanked the people of Chamundeshwari constituency for his win.

Majority

He exuded confidence that Congress would come to power with an absolute majority and predicted the party would win 120-130 seats. Congress is not limited to any religion, caste and language, hence people are moving towards Congress.

MP A H Vishwanath said GTD has returned to JD(S). This is not a sudden decision as the latter had met Kumaraswamy at Abu Dhabi on December 31. He also criticised Kumaraswamy for breaking the promise ‘Vachanabrashta’ during the 20-20 agreement with Yeddyurappa.

He alleged that Kumaraswamy will not allow Vokkaliga leaders to grow. Vishwanath said that Siddaramaiah’s leadership is necessary for the party in the state. C Basavegowda, who joined Congress party called upon the workers to unite and struggle for the victory of the party.

MP R Dhruvanarayana inaugurated the programme. MLAs H S Mahadevaprasad, H C Mahadevappa, M Satyanarayana, Venkatesh, Tanveer Sait, ex-MLA M K Somashekar, ex-MLC Muktarunnisa Begum, state youth Congress president Rizwan Arshad, city Congress president C Dasegowda and others were present.