Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Siddaramaiah were engaged in a war of words on Sunday after the former termed Bharath Jodo yatra as a sinister campaign being undertaken by a “party on bail.”
“I need not speak about fake Gandhis. The whole party is on bail. Rahul Gandhi, his mother and AICC president Sonia Gandhi and KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar are on bail,” the Chief Minister said here after garlanding the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastry on their birth anniversaries. His comments came after reporters sought his response to Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s statement that the BJP government in Karnataka was corrupt.
He said: “It (Congress) is a bail party and all cases pertain to corruption. The KPCC president is struggling hard in padayatra as the cases have been going on since the last two to three years.” The Chief Minister further said: “Hitherto, Karnataka was their (Congress) ATM, but not now. For this reason they are unhappy. Everybody knows that there is no 40% here. I will order an inquiry if they give me documents where such things have happened.”
Meanwhile, reacting sharply to Mr. Bommai’s comments, Mr. Siddaramaiah told reporters in Mysuru that several BJP leaders too were out on bail. “Six Ministers of the BJP government in the State had obtained anticipatory bail and secured a stay from the court against obscene portrayal in the media. If they had not indulged in anything obscene, why were they afraid and rushed to the court?” He said: “BJP leaders like former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and Minister V. Somanna had obtained bail while Minister R. Ashok had obtained a stay from the court. Union Home Minister Amit Shah too had gone to court.”
Wondering whether BJP leaders were Gandhians, he remarked: “Are they Gandhians? Do we have to listen to this from people who killed Gandhi? It was the BJP that was carrying the portrait of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse in procession.”
Terming the BJP leaders as being shameless, he said: “Even if a bandicoot had fallen in their plate, they will say that a fly has fallen in our plate.”
