Won’t destabilise your govt, HDK tells Yediyurappa

Former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Monday said his party the JD(S), which is now in the Opposition, will not try to destabilise Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s government.

Speaking on Yediyurappa’s confidence motion in the Legislative Assembly, Kumaraswamy assured his support for all the good work the BJP government will do. “We won’t do anything to scuttle your chance to run the government by bringing your tally down to 99 or 100,” he said.

After moving the motion, Yediyurappa said the administration machinery had come to a standstill under the Kumaraswamy-led Congress-JD(S) regime. “Our first priority will be to bring the administration on the right track,” Yediyurappa said.

Kumaraswamy took exception to this, calling it a “baseless” allegation. “In the past 14 months, I’ve been true to my conscience in the way I worked for the people. Look at the crop loan waiver scheme my government implemented. You called it a farce, but now that you are in power, check the files and see for yourself the honesty with which we implemented it,” he told Yediyurappa. He also demanded the government to issue “within 48 hours” guidelines to implement the Debt Relief Act.

Kumaraswamy mocked Yediyurappa for failing to thank the 17 disqualified MLAs because of whom he became chief minister.

Like Kumaraswamy, Siddaramaiah opposed Yediyurappa’s trust motion. “You don’t have the mandate,” he said. “Your government should’ve had 111 or 113 for a simple majority. But you’ve formed government with 105.”

Siddaramaiah said he entered the Assembly along with Yediyurappa way back in
1983.

“Not even once has Yediyurappa become CM with people’s mandate. In 2008, he had 110 seats. In 2018, he had 104. I’d like to see you complete your term as CM, but there’s no guarantee that you will because you’ll have to run the government with those rebel MLAs. Can the government be stable,” he asked.