The blemish of the events of October 11 have stained the state assembly. Nothing that is done now will undo that ignominy, says former prime minister.
Former prime minister and JD(S) leader HD Deve Gowda, at a press conference in the city, said that the incidents in the state assembly on October 11 had caused a stain on the reputation of Karnataka that would be hard to cleanse.
Quoting from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, he recalled to scribes that after the murder, Lady Macbeth, obsessed with guilt, would say, “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” Nothing can cleanse the state assembly, Gowda said, not all the perfumes of Arabia.
Casting aspersions on the impartiality of chief justice JS Khehar, the former prime minister said that Khehar was seen to be inordinately close to chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. He said that at the festivities in Mysore, the chief minister and the chief justice had shared a dais. To the former prime minister, that was enough reason to question the integrity of the judge.
“The chief justice needs to introspect. I don’t want to comment more on the matter, but it is suspicious that the chief justice should share a dais with the chief minister at the Dasara in Mysore,” Deve Gowda said.
AH Vishwanath, Congress MP from Mysore, had earlier cast doubts on the integrity of the chief justice. He had claimed that the chief justice ought not to have shared a dais with the chief minister during the Mysore Dasara, especially since the dissident MLAs had a filed a case in the high court, over which Khehar was presiding. Besides, the chief minister was a respondent in that case.
“The chief justice owes the people of the state an explanation for his conduct. I have no fear. I have, in the past, written letters to judges of the high court of Karnataka on irregularities in the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (Nice) issue,” Gowda said.
In a scathing attack on the BJP government in the state, the JD(S) supremo said, “It’s shameful that the state government should indulge in Operation Lotus, to swell up its ranks.
Speaker KG Bopaiah’s decision to disqualify 16 MLAs has given scope for all type of suspicion. The speaker has shown that he is a puppet in the hands of chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. I have not seen such a speaker in my whole political career. Just ahead of the trust vote on October 11, the chief minister and the speaker were in a huddle, and they informed the police force to take action in case of untoward incidents. All that happened on October 11 was actually planned,” said Gowda, adding that he was horrified that policemen carrying arms were present in the house during the trust vote.
People are fed up with politics in the state, and for good reason, the former prime minister said, adding that God alone could intervene and save the state.
He blamed the shameful state of affairs on the BJP and the RSS.
Gowda did not spare the Congress of blame for the sorry situation in the state. “The Congress high command keeps mum. I don’t know why the Congress high command directed the governor to give a second chance to chief minister BS Yeddyurappa to prove his majority on the floor of the house. When the Congress went on a padayatra to Bellary in July protesting against illegal mining in the state, Union ministers from Karnataka warned the state government that they have several weapons that could be pulled out at the appropriate time. Giving the chief minister another opportunity to prove his majority was perhaps one of those secret weapons,” said Gowda, mocking.
Gowda said that a similar situation arose in Gujarat during his tenure as prime minister (1996-97). “I had imposed president’s rule without any debate,” the JD(S) supremo claimed, adding that it was a pity that even though the governor had recommended president’s rule in Karnataka during the present crisis, the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre had refused to act on that suggestion.
“The Congress and the BJP are conspiring to finish all regional parties, but that will not happen,” the former prime minister said, addressing the media.
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