MYSURU: The BJP-JDS padayatra against the ruling Congress over the alleged scams in MUDA and ST development corporation ended here on Saturday with the alliance partners declaring that they will continue their struggle till Chief Minister Siddaramaiah resigns owning moral responsibility for the scams and the “corrupt” Congress government steps down.
The mega rally turned out to be a show of strength of the alliance partners in Siddaramaiah’s home turf. The alliance leaders disputed Siddaramaiah’s claim that he is “clean” and painted him as “corrupt” who “betrayed” the SCs and STs by allegedly diverting Rs 25,000 crore allocated for their development, to other schemes. Stating that Siddaramaiah has lost moral right to continue in office as CM, BJP leaders BS Yediyurappa, Prahlad Joshi and BY Vijayendra and JDS leaders HD Kumaraswamy and Nikhil Kumaraswamy said both the parties will work together to liberate people from the “corrupt” Congress government.
Alleging that the Siddaramaiah government fled the House fearing the Opposition attack, the BJP-JDS leaders fired a barrage of questions at Siddaramaiah. They sought action against him for the alleged violation of rules and misuse of power to get 14 MUDA sites registered in his wife’s name.
Lashing out at Siddaramaiah for asking him to retire from politics, Yediyurappa said that he would be in public life till his last breath. “I will tour the state and will not rest till you (Siddaramaiah) step down,” he added.
Development works have come to a standstill in the state, he said and dared Siddaramaiah to dissolve the House and seek a fresh mandate. He claimed that the BJP will win 130-140 seats if the elections are held now.He advised Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar to worry about his future and claimed that the BJP-JDS alliance under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former PM HD Deve Gowda will bounce back to power in Karnataka.
Kumaraswamy said that he has accepted the challenge of Shivakumar, who recently stated that he will come up with details of his (HDK’s) involvement in 50 land denotification cases. The Union Minister said that there is no point in Siddaramaiah regretting or volunteering to return the MUDA sites granted to his wife after violating rules and misusing power.
Reiterating the demand for Siddaramaiah’s resignation, Vijayendra said the alliance partners will continue their agitation against the “corrupt” Congress government. He challenged Shivakumar to make public the alleged scams during the BJP and JDS rule in the past. He alleged that Siddaramaiah got 15 FIRs registered against Yediyurappa in the past 15 years.