APIJD to merge with Congress in September

Mysore, July 30 (UNI) All India Progressive Janata Dal (AIPJD) will merge with Congress in the presence of Congress Supremo Sonia Gandhi in September, former Karnataka deputy chief minister S Siddaramaiah said here today.

Talking to newspersons here, Mr Siddaramaiah, who recently joined Congress, said that '' Ms Gandhi will be participating in a huge rally in Bangalore and in her presence the AIPJD would merge with Congress.'' Mr Siddaramaiah said that he would tour along with congress leaders in the state to expose the major scandals and poor governance of the Janata Dal (Secular) and Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government.

Stating that he would be touring every nook and corner of the State, he said that he would expose misdeeds of the Coalition government which came into power under the guise of making Karnataka a developed one. He termed the present JD(S)-BJP coalition government as the ''most corrupt'' government ever witnessed by any State in the country.

Replying to a question, he said that AIPJD legislators supporting him would wait for appropriate time to take decision about resigning to the Assembly.

He said that it was unfortunate that JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda, who fought the elections on a secular platform, has now joined hands with the BJP to make his son H D Kumarswamy the Chief Minister.

Mr Siddaramaiah reiterated his demand that the State government should hand over the illegal mining and bribery case to the CBI to bring out the truth and to punish the guilty.

Referring to BMIC project, he said if the State government was really wanted to take care of the farmers and return their lands, it should bring legislation to take over the BMIC project immediately, Replying to a question, he said that he would seek re-election from Chamundeswari to the Assembly whenever election was announced.

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