Karnataka: Kumaraswamy sounds alarm bells for Congress, says 45 MLAs in touch with BJP

The former Karnataka Chief Minister made these shocking revelations citing a State intelligence report.

Hyderabad: Is the Congress government in Karnataka in trouble? Even as a bitter war for the Chief Minister’s post is heating up among the party’s senior leaders, JDS State president HD Kumaraswamy dropped another bomb by stating that 45 Congress MLAs were in touch with the BJP.

The former Karnataka Chief Minister made these shocking revelations citing a State intelligence report. Kumaraswamy, who along with 19 JDS MLAs visited the famous Hasanamba Temple in Hassan, spoke to the media later and asked Chief Minister K Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar to protect their MLAs and not to make futile attempts at poaching JDS legislators.

---

“Unfortunately, the Chief Minister and his ministers are trying to lure JDS MLAs despite the Congress winning 136 seats,” Kumaraswamy was quoted in the media, after saying citing intelligence reports which said 45 Congress MLAs were in touch with the BJP. Fuelling the speculations after his statement, BJP MP Tejasvi Surya met Shivakumar at his home office on Wednesday.

Kumaraswamy’s revelation comes in the wake of the race for the Chief Minister’s post gathering steam in the Congress, especially between Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, who are frequently engaged in verbal duels over a cabinet reshuffle. With things going out of control, Congress General Secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala and AICC General Secretary KC Venugopal had recently held a meeting with the duo at Bengaluru and warned of action against those violating party discipline.

Even before things could settle down between these two, Karnataka IT Minister and AICC Chief Mallikarjun Kharge’s son Priyank Kharge also came up saying he was interested in becoming the Chief Minister.

Kumaraswamy, meanwhile, also criticized the financial policies of the Congress government, stating that it had already failed in addressing people’s issues and that Karnataka’s financial burden would cross Rs.10 lakh crore if the Congress remained in power for five years.

“The guarantee schemes have failed and crores are being looted in the implementation of the Shakti scheme,” Kumaraswamy said.