'Cong wrongly assumed BSY-led govt will fall in 6 mths'

Bengaluru: Former Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said his party JD(S) cannot ‘unsettle’ the ruling BJP in the near future and that their erstwhile partner Congress was now repenting for wrongly assuming that the dispensation would collapse on its own.

The JD(S) leader told his party workers during a video conference that Congress leaders nurtured false hopes that the B S Yediyurappa led BJP government would be in power for just six months and then collapse on its own.

‘This was their (Congress leaders) calculation, but now they are repenting. They thought that the government will fall in six months and Congress would come back. That situation is not there now,’ Kumaraswamy said.

The JD(S) leader was referring to the Congress-JD(S) coalition government he had headed for a year from mid 2018 to mid 2019 when it collapsed due to rebellion by MLAs of both parties.

This eventually helped the BJP government come to power in July 2019.

Kumaraswamy has been blaming certain Congress leaders in Karnataka, including Siddaramaiah, for the collapse of the coalition government.

The former CM said there may be internal differences in the BJP, but it was not a party that would let go of power that easily.

‘You party workers are making all efforts to work for the people. There is still time to establish a pro-people government…we cannot unsettle the BJP government in the near future,’ Kumaraswamy said.

Refusing to comment on the issue, Congress Legislative Party leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramiah said there was no point in recalling the past, ‘which is a closed chapter.

‘It’s more than a year since the coalition government collapsed. The BJP government is going to complete one year in office.

We should speak about the BJP government and not Kumaraswamy,’ he told reporters here.