Siddaramaiah prime suspect: Deve Gowda

JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had let the illegal lottery ticket racket “thrive” in the State, and as he was the “prime suspect” in the illegality, he should be held accountable.

Addressing the media in Bengaluru on Monday, Gowda hit back at Siddaramaiah for his statements and said the chief minister’s “obstinacy” had prevented him from acting on the matter.

Siddaramaiah had either turned a blind eye to the racket, or there had been a failure in intelligence.

“If the chief minister was not aware, then it is definitely the failure of the intelligence chief, who too should be held accountable.

But, if the chief minister has been aware about the racket, and has failed to act on the intelligence reports, then it becomes clear that he is directly involved in this racket,” he said. Protocol dictates that the chief minister meet the Home minister and the intelligence chief every day, Gowda added.

Coming down heavily on Siddaramaiah for appointing Kempaiah as the advisor to Home Minister K J George, Gowda said the retired IPS officer was the brains behind the racket.
He should be “grilled” by the police. Merely grilling one IPS officer would not help matters. The case should be referred to the CBI, he demanded.

Though his son H D Kumaraswamy, as former chief minister, had banned illegal lottery, and had continued to campaign against the illegality, the Congress government had “belittled” him, he said.

He said that while his MLAs would meet the governor seeking his intervention in the matter, he would speak to his party workers and start a statewide agitation.
DH News Service