Kumaraswamy lambasts Opposition for disrupting Assembly

Bangalore, July 17 (UNI) Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy today lambasted the Congress leaders for frequently disrupting the Assembly proceedings and charged them with indulging in ''cowardice politics'' instead of facing issues boldly.

Speaking to newspersons in his chambers after the House witnessed the Speaker applying a guillotine to the Karnataka Appropriation Bill, he said the Congress leaders with rich experience in parliamentary practice had thrown all norms to winds and often resorted to dharna. In fact, they had created a record by resorting to a large number of dharnas in the previous and the present sessions, he remarked.

The Chief Minister said the main intention of the Opposition was to stall the House proceedings, thereby depriving him of his privilege to reply to the Rs 150 crore bribe charge levelled against him by the Bharatiya Janata Party member Janardhana Reddy. ''I wanted to reveal everything right from 2003 about all the important decisions taken on allowing mining activities in Bellary. In fact, permissions for mining were given despite the reservations expressed by the then Forests Minister,'' he claimed.

Mr Kumaraswamy said he had never permitted any petition to engage in mining, whereas his predecessor N Dharam Singh had presided over meetings to grant permits to various people, including some family members of politicians.

The loyalty revenue had increased from Rs 20 lakh a month in January to Rs 50 lakhs a month after he took over, he added.

''With introduction of stringent measures that led to increase in loyalty revenue, if I could collect Rs 150 crore as alleged, I leave it to Mr Singh to have a self introspection with regard to how much money people would have given him during his tenure as the Chief Minister for allowing illegal mining,'' he added.

On former Deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's plea to make a statement before resigning his Assembly seat, he said the member had already toured villages and made known his intention of joining the Congress to his voters. Such being the case, where was the need for the Speaker to allow him to make a statement, he asked.

UNI SR GD AK PC2001