Siddaramaiah takes on Shivamogga legislator KS Eshwarappa, accuses BJP of stoking communal tensions
CHITRADURGA: Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday lambasted Shivamogga legislator KS Eshwarappa and said that people who hate human beings were communal in nature and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of propagating communal tensions in the state.
Speaking to the media during a brief visit to the city, Siddaramaiah, also the Chairman of the Co-Ordination committee for the JDS-Congress coalition, said that the BJP did not believe in humanitarian acts and so they were communal.
He was responding to criticism from the BJP for his decision to observe the birth anniversary of former ruler Tipu Sultan as a celebration across the state.
Talking about Eshwarappa's comments targeting him personally and labelling him a 'communal fanatic', Siddaramaiah said that he would not comment on the same as it was said by a person who had no knowledge of history.
Terming the BJP as an insensitive party, he said that statements given by their leaders were totally anti-democratic. "Union Minister Ananthkumar Hegde speaks of changing the constitution, the document on which a vibrant democracy is built," he said adding that the BJP, which did not believe in democracy, had no right to continue in politics.
"The tagline ‘Saab Ka Saath, Saab Ka Vikas’, is just lip service and is not implemented properly, which clearly shows the double standards of the party," he said.
On Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy not attending the Tippu Jayanti programme in Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah said that he might have skipped the programme owing to advise by doctors. On mining baron Janardhana Reddy, Siddaramaiah said that Reddy's conspiracy theory and blame game against the coalition government was totally false and that anyone who had done wrong must face the consequences.