BENGALURU: Union Minister and JDS state president H D Kumaraswamy on Sunday asserted that he has kept the option open to hold talks with Chief Minister D K Shivakumar in the presence of farmers on the Bidadi Township project and warned that the JDS will resort to a legal fight if the Congress government goes ahead with the project.
“I am still ready to sit with farmers and discuss the Bidadi township crisis. If the chief minister comes, I will also come,” he told reporters.
He said the CM has not yet responded to his letter about the hardships of the Bidadi farmers. “When I called him to sit with farmers and discuss the matter, he did not come. I am still ready, the Bidadi problem should be discussed along with the farmers. Instead of doing that, they are bringing people who are not related to the Bidadi area from outside and protesting,” Kumaraswamy said.
He claimed that the CM is more interested in real estate business than that of farmers and clarified that there is no need to hold meetings between the four walls (at Vidhana Soudha as the CM offered) excluding farmers who are losing their land. “The JDS is ready to fight a legal battle against the Bidadi project. Our party will stand with the farmers.
The farmers have been fighting for 475 days. Finally, a decision has to be made in court. The government is playing with the feelings of the people there. They (government) have gone out with their reputation in mind. They have opened the avenue to illegal activities worth thousands of crores. They are going to loot in the name of the project,” the minister said.
Replying to Shivakumar’s reported statement that Kumaraswamy couldn’t digest the former becoming CM, he hit back, saying, “I have also seen the CM’s chair. Don’t talk about Akbar Birbal, but ask what is the story of the people of the state”. He pointed out that three farmers have committed suicide.
He said the Vokkaliga community did not back Shivakumar for the CM’s post to loot the people in the name of caste.
JDS has started groundwork for local bodies’ polls: HDK
Union Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Sunday said JDS workers have started the spadework to organise the party for the local body polls for the last two to three months. He was speaking at a women’s wing meeting in which hundreds of women from Hebbal and Banashankari joined the JDS.
“This has been an ongoing effort, so today is not the first day. What we are focusing on is preparing our workers to contest the upcoming Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), zilla panchayat and taluk panchayat elections,”
he told reporters. Claiming that former prime minister H D Deve Gowda initiated women’s reservation in local bodies, Kumarswamy promised that more women will be fielded in the polls. “The GBA polls will definitely be a central issue in Bengaluru. Following that, the government will have to conduct the long-pending ZP and TP elections within a month or two, in compliance with court judgments,” he said.
