BSY to slap defamation case against Kumaraswamy, Siddaramaiah
Bangalore, June 22 (PTI) : Taking the Opposition parties head on, a combative Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa today said defamation suits would be slapped against JDS leader H D Kumaraswamy and Leader of Opposition Congress in the Assembly Siddaramaiah for levelling ''false allegations'' against him.
Minutes after Kumaraswamy addressed a press conference in New Delhi targeting him, Yeddyurappa told reporters here that he would file the case. He dismissed the allegations of Kumaraswamy, son of JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda, as "baseless" and "not true" lacking any valid evidence.
Yeddyurappa said he would issue a detailed press release tomorrow (to rebut the charges) or at the earliest.
The chief minister also announced that a "charge sheet" against Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy and their family members would be released in New Delhi in two-three days.
He said defamation case would also be filed against Siddaramaiah, who had alleged yesterday that Yeddyurappa and his family members have evaded income tax to the tune of Rs 339.54 crore and urged the Centre to institute a probe.
Yeddyurappa accused the Opposition of raising repeated allegations against him so that the BJP "should not question" vis-a-vis 2G, Adarsh Housing and other scams.
He said the Opposition Congress and JDS were repeatedly raising allegations because they realise that if the BJP government continued to function as it had been doing in the past three years, people would forget the parties' names.
Yeddyurappa, flanked by Cabinet colleagues, slammed the Congress for its booklet "Congress Nadige-Janara Balige" (Congress Journey towards the People) which, he said, contains "mostly half-truths and irrelevant information".
He released a 15-page point-by-point rebuttal to the Congress booklet. Releasing the government's clarification titled "Clarity in Stand: Performance Aplenty", he said his attempt is to counter the "sinister attempt of influencing the people of the State to believe the mis-information as truth".
Yeddyurappa said in the Congress booklet, it had been portrayed as though the Karnataka government was depending upon Central grants for its plan expenditure and failed in mobilising resources.
"The actual fact is that the state's share forms a part and parcel of the Centrally-sponsored schemes. It's not begging. We are not seeking alms," he said. "Another thing to be noted here is that the Central grants are nothing but a portion of taxes collected by the Centre from the states."
Training his guns on the Congress-led UPA, Yeddyurappa said the Centre was neglecting areca nut growers of the state.
"Despite yellow leaf disease and other losses to recant growers, the Centre failed to declare minimum support price", the Chief Minister charged.
Yeddyurappa also alleged that the Centre was neglecting palm growers, "suffering due to abolition of import levy on palm oil. Also the Central Government has not yet responded to our request for a minimum support price".
He charged the Centre with double standards in the area of health, saying while other states were being provided central grants under National Rural Health Mission in the ratio of 1:2, Karnataka was getting it only 1:1."Is this justified?" he said.
The chief minister accused the central government of not cooperating with the state in allocating coal and gas for new projects, adding, it's only giving "lame excuses". "This has become an impediment to start new power projects".