Corruption not an issue, says HDK

Janata Dal (Secular) State president H D Kumaraswamy has said corruption was a non-issue in the forthcoming Assembly elections and that his party was not keen on making it a major election plank.

Kumaraswamy, who has travelled several thousands of kilometres across the State in the last three-and-half months as a prelude to the poll campaign, said he was neither attacking the BJP nor the Congress, though both were corrupt. Corruption has already been debated. And, at Delhi level, it is more rampant than in Karnataka, he said.
He said he was seeking voter on the basis of the work he had done as the chief minister.

Interacting with the media in Bangalore on Friday, he said the BJP’s decision to rope in Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for campaigning would not yield the desired results because Karnataka was different from Gujarat. At the same time, the Congress cannot presume it would come to power after the polls, he said.

Kumaraswamy said it was obvious from the recent urban local body election results that the JD(S) was as popular.  This, he said, had given him the confidence that his party would win not less than 70 to 80 seats in the Assembly polls.

He said he was toiling hard to win at least 50 seats in North Karnataka.

On allegations that he was not decentralising power in the party, he said, “Some years ago, the party lost many senior leaders, including M P Prakash, H S Mahadevprasad and B C Patil. It will take some more years for the second-rung leaders to emerge as frontline leaders. Such a situation is also putting pressure on me.”

Asked whether the third generation in his family would be entering the electoral battle this time, he replied in the negative. He said his wife Anitha had to enter politics because the situation in Madhugiri demanded it. “Now, she has to contest from Channapatna because we do not have an alternative candidate. I will contest from Ramanagara,” he said.

To a question whether the party had any hopes of winning seats in Bangalore Urban, he said in 2008, the JD(S) candidates had done well in Pulikeshinagar, Mahalakshmi Layout, Padmanabha Nagar, Bangalore South and Dasarahalli. “We are going to field the most powerful candidates for the 28 seats in Bangalore,” he said. He said the party would not be fielding TV personality Maalavika from the Rajajinagar constituency as rumoured.