'I was not power hungry": Yediyurappa

Belgaum, Oct 15 (UNI) Former Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister B S Ydiyurappa today said that he wanted Chief Minister post only to implement his ideas.

Addressing 'Dharmayatra' rally, which arrived here this evening, he said that " I am not power hungry. I wanted position of Chief Minister only to implement my ideas for the benefit of the state and society".

He said that inspite of many warnings from the seniors of the party and well wishes, I believed in former Chief Minister H D Kumarswamy and gave him chance to become Chief Minister before me.

"You have to believe some one. But he betrayed us, if we were betrayed by JD-S, by now Karnataka would have been burnt. As we believe in peace we stopped our angry party workers from protests." He said that during the last 20 months "we did not speak about the mental torture faced by our Ministers, MLAs only to safeguard the coalition government and for the development of Karnataka. We have implemented all the promises given by us in Belgaum Assembly such as Nanjundappa Committee Report implementation, Vidhan Soudha building in Belgaum." "I have not slept since last so many nights thinking- why Kumarswamy has done this to me and what is my fault?. May god give Kumarswamy good sense so that the same mistake should not be repeated by him in the future", he added.

BJP National General Secretary H N Ananthkumar demanded holding election in Karnataka along with Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat which are scheduled in December. He described JD-S National President Deve Gowda as modern 'Bhasmasur' who destroyed late Virendra Patil, Ramakrishana Hegde, J H Patel, Sidramaiah and now he is targeting Yadiurappa but he will not be successful, he added.

Earlier, speaking at Haveri, Mr Yediyurappa demanded dissolution of the State assembly to enable early mid-term poll in Karnataka etc etc...Eds picking up from BG 11.

UNI