Kumaraswamy threatens to go to polls

BANGALORE: Launching a tirade against the coalition partner, Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday virtually dashed the hopes of the BJP to get power on Thursday announcing that he is ready to break the agreement reached 20 months ago and face elections.

"We will go to people's court," said Kumaraswamy of Janata Dal (Secular) who accused the ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of assassinating his character by alleging him of corruption and murder.

He accused  senior state BJP leaders of having remained mute spectators while some of their partymen indulged in what he called irresponsible behaviour and threatened to ruin his family. "Should I hand over the reins to  the BJP leaders who have remained silent even after one of their party men has vowed to perform the death rites of me and my family?" he asked.

He alleged that the BJP leaders had conspired to malign him and his family  in public and encouraged their party legislator G Janardhan Reddy to  level Rs 150-crore bribery charge against him and tourism minister B Sreeramulu to file an attempt to murder charge against him. "At least for courtesy's sake, the BJP leaders did not express regret for the actions of their partymen," Kumaraswamy said. He indicated that this "humiliation" was the cause of the entire tussle over power transfer to the BJP.

"If the BJP can prove that it can control the violent activities of Sangh Parivar, we can think of power transfer. I cannot entrust the responsibility of governing the people of Karnataka to such a party which is responsible for the violence in the state in the name of lord Ram and killed two innocent people in the name of communism," he declared.  "The mutual trust between the parties ceased to exist now. Power transfer is not a child's play. BJP never created a cordial atmosphere for such an exercise to happen,"

"I allied with the BJP to save the party 20 months ago, today I can break away again to save the party and the state. Only if the party leaders can convince of a responsible government I will resign," he said.

Supporting his son, JD (S) president H D Deve Gowda said the next elections would be his last. Gowda added, "I had always opposed an alliace with communal BJP. If we do not reach an understanding in the national executive committee meeting on Friday, we will decide our own course."

Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy has convened a cabinet meeting on Friday to discuss the power transfer. But none of the BJP ministers will be attending the meeting, party spokesperson S Suresh Kumar said. "We have informed our leaders in Delhi of the developments," he said.