From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Apr 21: In a sharp rejoinder to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and BJP Housing Minister V Somanna on their comments asking Congress party to name Jagadish Shettar as the Chief Ministerial candidate, KPCC Chief D K Shivakumar has asked the BJP leaders to first put their own house in order.

“We don’t need Bommai or Somanna to tell us what to do,’’ he said and declared that the Congress party will elect its Chief Minister in the most democratic manner.

Speaking to media persons in Bengaluru on Friday, Shivakumar said the BJP leaders should first ponder as to why its own senior party leaders like Jagadish Shettar, who was the Chief Minister and held important posts in the party and government, Laxman Savadi, the former Deputy Chief Minister, and several other prominent leaders quit the party and were forced go join Congress.

“The Congress party believes in Basavanna’s principles and collective leadership,’’ he said wondering what happened to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s and Home Minister Amit Shah’s previous statements of fighting the assembly elections under Bommai’s leadership and why the ruling BJP, which had ousted its own Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa and are now falling after the Lingayat leader.

“The very fact that the several prominent BJP leaders have held a meeting in which Yediyurappa was present and have urged the party’s high command to declare that a Lingayat will be the next Chief Minister indicates that BJP is unsure of its victory or in Bommai’s leadership,’’ Shivakumar said.

The KPCC Chief said the sad plight of BJP that it will fight the elections under Modi’s leadership and Yediyurappa’s backing shows that BJP has lost its confidence in Bommai.

To a pointed question on the Lingayat leaders holding a meeting under Yediyurappa’s leadership and demanding that a Lingayat should be the next chief minister suggests that BJP has lost confidence in Bommai, he said and mentioned “dam has broken and water cannot be impounded. The dam has to be rebuilt or the water will flow to the Congress sea,’’ he said.

Shivakumar said the party’s decision to ask his brother D K Suresh, Bengaluru Rural MP, to file his nomination papers from Kanakapura constituency from where he is contesting, was a precaution against the ruling party’s machinations to somehow get his nomination papers rejected and present a walk over to BJP’s Revenue Minister R Ashok, who has been fielded from there.

“If we wanted to oppose Ashok, the party could have asked Suresh to contest from the former’s traditional set of Padmanabhanagar as there was a strong demand from the party’s rank and file. Suresh has filed his nomination papers from Kanakapura as a ploy of abundant precaution,’’ he said.

The KPCC chief said the ruling BJP had entrusted the ‘trumped up’ disproportionate assets case against him to CBI when the Yediyurappa regime did not refer illegal assets cases to CBI. The State Advocate General had said the case against him does not warrant CBI investigation and yet the government went ahead. The ruling BJP is after Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi. “Will they leave me when they have not spared Soniaji and Rahulji,’’ he asked.

Shivakumar said the assembly election date of May 10 will mark as the day of ousting the corrupt BJP rule from Karnataka. Several prominent leaders from other parties are joining Congress and there is a definite pro-Congress wave in the State, he claimed.