Former Karnataka chief minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday targeted Congress and launched a scathing attack on the party saying that the goodwill that he had earned during the last 12 years was destroyed by Congress leaders, especially Siddaramaiah and, he has lost the trust of people and his supporters after joining hands with Congress.
“The goodwill that I had earned from the people of the state in 2006-07 (as CM) and which I had maintained for 12 years despite the big campaign against me for not transferring power to BJP, everything got destroyed by joining hands with the Congress,” HD Kumaraswamy said.
He further said that he was caught in the ‘trap’ of the Congress and could not understand the conspiracy of Siddaramaiah.
HD Kumaraswamy mentioned that we should never have joined hands with the Congress because the Congress campaigned in the election by calling the JD (S) the ‘B’ team of the BJP.
“If we had aligned with BJP, I would have been the Chief Minister even today.”
However, he also clarified that he did want to blame his father former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda as he understood and respects his lifelong commitment towards a ‘secular’ identity.
After a hung assembly emerged in Karnataka after 2018 assembly polls, the Congress-JD(S) joined hands together in a post-poll alliance to form the government to keep BJP, which was the single largest party in the state, out of power. However, a year after the coalition government collapsed due to internal rebellion and resulted in the formation of a BJP government in the state
Meanwhile, Siddaramaiah also hit back at Kumaraswamy with a sharp reply: “Kumaraswamy is an expert in lying, he can lie according to the situation for the sake of politics…was making him Chief Minister despite JD(S) having 37 seats our fault? Shedding tears is the culture of the Deve Gowda family, nothing new in it, they can shed for appeasement or to make someone believe.”
