Siddaramaiah quit Chamundeshwari seat to save ideology, self-respect

Mysore, Nov 21 (UNI) Former Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah today said he had tendered his resignation to the Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency prior to joining the Congress to save his ideology and self-respect and was confident of retaining his seat in the December four byelection.

Participating in an interaction of bypoll candidates, organised by the Mysore District Journalist Association here, he said the byelection would not be a referendum on the Government, but as Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy himself had accepted the election was a 'test' to the coalition Government.

Mr Siddaramiah denied as ''baseless'', the allegation levelled by Mr Kumaraswamy that the Government officials were helping him in getting election funds and said let the Chief Minister immediately take action against such officials. He denied that the Congress had influenced the BSP against fielding a candidate for the bypoll.

On the Chief Minister and his Deputy camping in the constituency for more than 15 days, he said that when the entire Government was involved in the election process, there were all possible chances of misuse of official machinery to influence the voters. MORE UNI BSP GD RKN1635