BS Yeddyurappa slams Devegowda for remarks on BJP

Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa today slammed former prime minister HD Devegowda for his remarks that the BJP government in the state would collapse if it accepted the judicial inquiry commission report on the Haveri Police firing "in its present form".

"Whether it is Devegowda, Thimmegowda or Bommegowda. I am
not here to react to their comments. The government is yet to take a decision on the K Jagannatha Shetty Commission report which went into Haveri police firing", he said when reporters sought his reaction on Gowda's statement.

Deve Gowda had yesterday referred to a report by justice Kedambady Jagannatha Shetty Commission on the 2008 police
firing on farmers in Haveri and said if the report was accepted it would be the "beginning of the downfall of the Yeddyurappa government".

Yeddyurappa said he was yet to peruse the report. "After studying it, it will be placed before the state cabinet for debate and a decision taken later", the chief minister said.

He said Deve Gowda was free to air his views and there was
no need to react to that and pointed to several Inquiry Commission reports which have 'gathered dust' during the previous regimes.

Two persons had died and six injured when police fired to quell a group of farmers agitating for supply of fertilizers on June 10, 2008, barely 10 days after the BJP government assumed office.

Yeddyurappa asserted that there was no shortage of fertilisers in Karnataka this kharif season.