The war of words between former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy and KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar’s family continued on Sunday with the former accusing the DK brothers of looting natural resources for personal gains.
“I am aware as to how many farmers’ families have been destroyed in Kanakapura. The nation knows how they have looted through mining on land usurped from poor farmers. They have exported stones by destructing natural resources here,” he told reporters in Ramanagaram, near here, without taking their names. “For them as people’s representatives, looting someone’s land, staging kidnaps or threatening parents to get their signatures to usurp land has been done. I have not destroyed any life like them. I know what they are.” He likened the DK brothers to the story of Alibaba and forty thieves.
He was responding to criticism made by D.K. Suresh after Mr. Kumaraswamy raised the Eagleton resort issue in the Legislative Assembly. Asking if he should learn anything from the DK Brothers, he said: “Should I learn what to speak in the Legislative Assembly or should I learn from them what farmers’ issues that I can raise?” Stating that he had raised Eagleton resort issue to expose their misdeeds, the former Chief Minister said that he cannot keep quiet on such misdeeds. “I spoke on many issues, including irrigation. He did not notice all that, but for the Eagleton issue.