Blow to BJP, ‘slighted’ Kumaraswamy says JD(S) won’t be part of anti-Siddaramaiah march

Speaking to reporters in Delhi, the Union minister said: “In the region between Bengaluru and Mysuru, we (the JD-S) are strong. In this situation, if they do not take us into confidence in a proper manner, why should we support (the march)?”

Politics is different from alliance during polls, Kumaraswamy said, suggesting that the JD(S) need not toe its bigger partner’s line on everything.

“This matter has hurt me emotionally as well… The person they have appointed to lead the protest programme… who is that Preetham Gowda?… He is the one who set out to destroy the family of Deve Gowda (former PM and the father of Kumaraswamy). He is called to the same meeting as I… There are limits to the amount of insult I can tolerate,” the JD(S) leader added.

Preetham Gowda is believed to have been behind the distribution of pen drives containing explicit videos of JD(S) MP and Kumaraswamy’s nephew Prajwal Revanna across Hassan ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in April.

Kumaraswamy said he was “emotionally hurt” seeing Preetham’s presence at the meeting held on Sunday by top BJP and JD(S) leaders to chalk out plans for the march. “They make me sit next to such a person. They tried to poison my family and I was made to sit next to this person. They are asking for my support after doing these things.”

Incidentally, Kumaraswamy was rushed to hospital from this meeting after a nosebleed.

The former Karnataka CM said that the heavy rains in most parts of the state also made the march unviable. “When there is a situation like this, can we… proceed on a protest march? We have to consider what the people will think. We have to be responsive to their emotions and pain… Politics must not take centre stage… Hundreds of people have been rendered homeless. In many parts of North Karnataka, dozens of villages have been inundated,” Kumaraswamy said.

His statement came a day after a JD(S) core committee meeting in Bengaluru, led by G T Deve Gowda, an MLA from the Mysuru region, concluded that the march would send the wrong signal given the rain destruction.

Incidentally, several JD(S) leaders, including Kumaraswamy, G T Deve Gowda, Sa Ra Mahesh and others, have been accused by the Congress of benefiting from site allotments by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority, the same allegations as raised against Siddaramaiah’s wife.

The BJP is also facing opposition from within its ranks over the intended march against Siddaramaiah, with many unhappy with BJP state president B Y Vijayendra.

BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, a strong critic of Vijayendra who is simultaneously seen as soft on Siddaramaiah, has called the planned march part of a “hidden agenda” of the BJP state leadership to make Congress Deputy CM Shivakumar the CM in place of Siddaramaiah.

Yatnal, a former Union minister, and former BJP minister Ramesh Jarkiholi, an ex-associate of Siddaramaiah and a bitter rival of Shivakumar and Vijayendra, also claim to have made plans for a separate march of their own, between Ballari (a tribal-dominated region) and Bengaluru, to protest against the alleged ST corporation fund fraud under the Congress government.

Both Yatnal and Jarkiholi have been unhappy with the rise of Vijayendra, the son of former Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa, and their supporters see the planned march as a bid to further enhance his profile.

“Vijayendra is organising a protest march against the Mysuru Urban Development Authority land allotments. He must reveal if his fight is to ensure that Siddaramaiah steps down as CM and make Shivakumar the CM,” Yatnal said Tuesday. “Our fight is against Congress corruption, without any ‘adjustment politics’.”

The ‘adjustment politics’ charge may stick as old-timers such as Siddaramaiah, Yediyurappa, Shivakumar, Kumaraswamy and other leaders are often accused of coming to each other’s rescue in situations of personal or family crisis.