By IANS
Bangalore/New Delhi : The crisis in the Karnataka government deepened Thursday with the ruling Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) stating that the situation was not conducive to transferring power to its partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Oct 3.
“The (political) atmosphere is not healthy for it now,” JD-S president and former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda said at a hurriedly called press meet, soon after he returned from New Delhi without meeting the BJP leadership with whom he wanted to discuss the issue of power transfer.
Deve Gowda was to meet Yashwant Sinha at 12 noon followed by lunch at BJP president Rajnath Singh’s residence along with L.K. Advani. Neither appointment worked out.
Visibly upset about allegations of attempt to murder against his son and Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy levelled by Tourism Minister B. Sriramulu who belongs to BJP, Deve Gowda said: I am more concerned about my son’s welfare now and not about power transfer.
“Perhaps this is for the first time in history that such charges are being levelled against a chief minister in the country. How can there be any discussion on power transfer in these circumstances?” he asked.
The former prime minister added that the BJP’s central leadership was keeping mum on such wild allegations and said unless the party took “action to rein in its ministers” there was no point in talking about power transfer.
In New Delhi, the party’s general secretary Kunwar Danish Ali said: “For the last 20 months BJP men in Karnataka have been harassing our leaders but the high command here has done nothing.”
BJP’s Sriramulu, a strongman in the iron-ore rich district of Bellary, alleged that JD-S workers fired at him Tuesday night while campaigning for urban local body polls to be held Friday.
“The firing was at the behest of Kumaraswamy and it was intended to kill me,” Sriramulu said, threatening a criminal case against the chief minister.
However, police in Bellary denied any firing incident and accused Sriramulu and suspended BJP MLC K. Janardhana Reddy of interfering in their work to unearth saris and liquor apparently stocked for distribution to voters.
The BJP had suspended Janardhana Reddy last year after he charged Kumaraswamy with taking a Rs.15 billion bribe to allow illegal iron-ore mining in Bellary.
Kumaraswamy is to give up his seat as chief minister Oct 3 as part of a pact with BJP when he walked out of the Congress-JD-S coalition and formed a JD-S-BJP government in February 2006.
On Wednesday Kumaraswamy reacted sharply to Sriramulu’s charges.
“If this is the case now, what will happen after power is handed over to BJP,” he told reporters.
He said it was up to the BJP to ensure the survival of the coalition.
In New Delhi, BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the party was “waiting and watching”.
“We don’t want to say anything right now. The local body elections are due Friday in Karnataka and we will speak only after those elections. We are still hopeful of transfer of power on Oct 3.”
BJP state president D.V. Sadananda Gowda told reporters in Mangalore: “It was a gentleman’s agreement to share the chief ministership and we expect JD-S to honour it.”