PTI
Bangalore, Apr 14: With the memories of betrayal still haunting him, BJP's Chief Ministerial candidate for the next month's Karnataka Assembly elections B S Yeddyurappa said the JD-S would be “decimated” by the electorate and appealed to people to decisively vote for a single party rule.
“People of the state have been waiting for an opportunity to expose JDS. They will never accept betrayers. In fact, JDS will be decimated in the coming election”, the former Chief Minister, who was ousted from power by the H D Devegowda-led Janata Dal-secular just a week after assuming office last year, said in an interview to PTI.
Despite his party being catapulted to power from the ranks of opposition in Karnataka, which witnessed a fractured mandate in 2004, he appealed to the people not to repeat a hung verdict and vote for a single party government.
“Coalition governments are an impediment to development”, he said. He ridiculed the JD-S' claims that the state would witness another hung assembly, saying “some JDS leaders are trying for 30 seats, so that they continue power politics”.
Slamming the JD-S for betraying him and his party BJP after pledging “unconditional support unilaterrally”, Yeddyurapa who is from dominant Lingayat community, appealed to the people to “wipe out JD-S and give BJP a chance”.
“JDS not only broke the promise it made to people on power sharing, but also its pledge taken in the presence of religious leaders”, he hit out at JD-S and also former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy.
Yeddyurappa recalled that at a function held in the presence of a renowned seer at Tumkur, Kumaraswamy had taken an oath that he would transfer power to BJP after completing his 20-month tenure as per the power sharing pact struck between the parties, but did not keep up his words.
On October 9 last, BJP pulled out of the JDS-BJP ministry led by Kumaraswamy following his refusal to honour to the Power Transfer Pact reached in January 2006.
Yeddyurappa also questioned JD-S' concern for farmers and under privileged. Reiterating his charge, he said, “it was Deve Gowda who summoned me to his residence and asked me not to extend loan waiver scheme to farmers, saying RBI and NABARD will not give their consent”.
Declining to give any credit to JDS for several welfare programmes he had announced in his two budgets presented in 2006-07 and 2007-08 as the Finance Minister in the Kumaraswamy government, Yeddyurappa claimed “all these are my programmes”.
He sought to know why the JDS or Congress, which formed a coalition government in 2004, did not formualte “progressive welfare schemes Bhagyalakshmi and Sandhya Suraksha”.
Taking a swipe at the Congress, he said it was a “divided house” and has “imported” a leader, under whose leadership it lost the election, he quipped without naming former Chief Minister S M Krishna, who resigned as Maharashtra Governor to lead the party in the coming polls.
“The BJP is certainly a preferred party and ahead in the coming polls. Because, people have appreciated my two budgets and the benefits they brought to them. I filled the coffers and funded new programmes”, Yeddyurappa, on whom BJP is banking upon to install its government, said.
When asked about reasons for his confidence of leading the party to victory in the three-phase polls, Yeddyurappa said “after I quit in November, I have toured so far 110 assembly constituencies. People are discussing how JDS betrayed me. BJP has received an unprecedented response”, he claimed.
Yeddyurappa also held the Congress responsible along with JDS for toppling his government.
“Fearing that the popular programmes I gave in my budgets would boost BJP popularity, Congress and JDS joined together and conspired to pull down my government,” he charged.
Congress made a bid to put off elections in the state fearing defeat, but the Election Commission went by the constitution, Yeddyurappa said coming down heavily on the attempts by Congress to seek deferment of polls citing anomalies in the voters list.
Yeddyurappa, whose party has already promised free power to farmers irrigation pump sets, Yeddyurappa, whose party has already promised free power to farmers irrigation pump sets, said “I have major plans for Bangalore infrastructure, which I will implement”.
If voted to power BJP will implement progammes that would halt migration of rural people into urban areas, besides empowering women and addressing the welfare of SCs STs and downtrodden, he promised.
He expressed his gratitude to the party high command for declaring him as its Chief Ministerial candidate.