‘Few friends’ in Cong wanted to see fall of coalition govt: HDD

Team Udayavani, Aug 21, 2019, 11:05 PM IST

Bengaluru: Nearly a month after the fall of the coalition government in Karnataka, JD(S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda on Wednesday alleged that “few friends” in alliance partner Congress could not see his son H D Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister.

“..few Congress friends wanted to remove the government (coalition). They could not see Kumaraswamy sitting in that post (Chief Minister),” Gowda told reporters here.

The former prime minister also lashed out at the Centre for “not releasing even a rupee” as relief for the flood-hit state and pointed out that there were 25 BJP MPs from Karnataka, and even threatened an agitation.

The Congress-JDS government in Karnataka collapsed on July 22 after the confidence motion moved by the then Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy was defeated in the assembly, ending his 14-month long turbulent tenure.

The Congress and JD(S), considered arch rivals, especially in old Mysuru region, had bitterly fought against each other during the 2018 assembly polls.

However, both parties had joined hands to form an alliance government as the assembly polls threw up a hung verdict and to keep BJP the single largest party in the 225 member assembly out of power.

Right from day one, the coalition government had been facing trouble from within as other than top leaders of both parties their rank and file had not accepted the alliance, which resulted in deadlines being set for the collapse of the government, amid alleged poaching of its MLAs by the BJP.

Repeated coalition worries affected the smooth functioning of the government.

Reflecting strains in the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in Karnataka, Kumaraswamy had said he was “not happy” being in the top post and was swallowing the pain like ‘Vishakantha’ (Lord Shiva), who drank poison.

Many legislators and also ministers from the Congress demanded that their legislature party chief Siddaramaiah be made the chief minister, which resulted in Kumaraswamy even threatening to step down.

Raising a banner of rebellion, seventeen MLAs (14 from the Congress and 3 JDS) had resigned which culminated in the fall of the coalition government.

Following the collapse, BJP under the leadership of B S Yediyurappa formed the government on July 26 and proved its majority in the assembly on July 28.