Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP) 

Bengaluru, Aug 26: "Siddaramaiah did not have any interest in saving the coalition government. Otherwise, he could have stopped the dissidents in his party. More than the BJP, he treated JD(S) as his enemy," commented former Karnataka chief minister, H D Kumaraswamy. 

Kumaraswamy jumped into the blame game, following exchange of harsh words between his father and JD(S) supremo, H D Deve Gowda, and former chief minister, Siddaramaiah. 

Speaking to a Kannada daily, Kumaraswamy said he will soon expose the people behind the collapse of the coalition government and the modus operandi employed by them for this purpose. "Congress leaders, Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi never created any problems for me. But Siddaramaiah was not inclined to save the government," he stated. 

Kumaraswamy said that he was made to repose trust before belying it. He added that he had kept quiet all these days but there is a lot for him to speak about. He said he will give a fitting reply to the people who have been talking against him now. 

He said that Siddaramaiah had, as a solution to the growing problem of dissidence, advised him to induct two independent MLAs into the ministry by making Nagesh a minister in the quota of the JD(S), and offering to make independent legislator, R Shankar, a minister from Congress quota. He revealed that Siddaramaiah had recommended to him to make Dr Sudhakar the chairman of Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, to quell the dissidence. "Deve Gowda had opposed this arrangement as he wanted to offer the post of minister to Dalits and Muslims in the party, and opposed allotment of JD(S) quota seat to a person put forward by the Congress, " he claimed. 

He noted that the Congress dissident MLAs who went to Mumbai had disclosed that they were there at the instructions of Siddaramaiah. He also recalled that Siddaramaiah, speaking to people close to him, had said that the government would not survive after the Lok Sabha election. He said he was treated like a first division clerk although he was the chief minister, and he had shed tears at a programme held in his party's office out of the frustration he felt in his aim to do good for the people of his state and the compulsion for running the government for that purpose. 

However, Siddaramaiah, speaking at Mysuru, said that the situation would not have worsened if Kumaraswamy had treated him as a friend and leader of the coalition partner. He accused Kumaraswamy of treating him like an enemy and always trying to settle scores with him. He was reacting to a statement purported to have been made against him by Kumaraswamy when speaking to a website. He commented that those who cannot run coalition government speak like this, and held Kumaraswamy entirely responsible for the collapse of the government."He treated Congressmen as outsiders and treated me as his enemy. Frustrated by this attitude, legislators parted ways. Therefore, the coalition government could not survive," he reasoned.