K'kaka: Yediyurappa avoids power sharing disc

New Delhi, Sep 11: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa today declined to comment on the discussions on transfer of power to the BJP from its coalition partner in the first week of October and said the party's immediate concern would be to win majority number of seats in the coming local body elections.

The BJP leader who was here to attend the unveiling of Kittur Rani Chennamma at Parliament House told newspersons that the BJP Ministers, MLAs and MPs were on their constituencies working for the success of the party in the elections scheduled before the end of this month.

The BJP is the single largest party in the state in terms of number of seats in Lok Sabha and the Assembly. The party has least number of seats in the local bodies and we will make all our efforts to make it the number one party, he said.

When reminded of the objections taken by J D (S) national president and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda's statement to the BJP claiming credits for the projects and programmes executed by the coalition government, Mr Yediyurappa felt there was nothing wrong in coalition partners claiming their share of credit. ''I may have presented the Budget as the Finance Minister but the J D (S) is certainly entitled to claim 50 per cent credit for all the programmes. Similarly, the BJP can claim its share in the good deed.

''We will not claim a single gram over and above our share'', he added.

Under the power sharing agreement reached between the J D (S) and the BJP, the latter is to take over the Chief Ministership in the last 20 months of the five year term.

He said the BJP-JD (S) coalition had provided adequate funds both for the urban and rural under various schemes and infrastructure projects intended to provide better living conditions in the small towns and villages where, each district got around Rs 5.10 crore for the drinking water schemes.

He said the programmes like Sandhya Surakha Yojana, Bhagya Lakshmi and ban of liquor and lottery were all the programmes of the alliance partners and it would take the parties a long way.

Several infrastructure programmes including the commencement of work on the airports at Gulbarga, Bijapur, Mysore and Hassan, starting six medical and engineering colleges in the government sector to ensure professional education in the reache of the poor and middles classes which had gone down well with the people of the state for the last 19 months.

The budget size which was at Rs 36,000 crore when the coalition took over had now grown to Rs 51,000 crore. These are our achievements and we are confident that the people would back us, he said.

UNI