PM did not appreciate HDK's work: Congress

New Delhi, Oct 8: The Congress Party today denied reports that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appreciated the work done by Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and asked him not to act in haste.''The Prime Minister did not speak to Mr Kumaraswamy,'' AICC Secretary in-charge of Media Tom Vadakkan said in a statement here, while asserting that ''the statement is absolutely false.'' He said the report had appeared in Bangalore edition of the Times of India.

It said the Karnataka Chief Minister had received a call from the Prime Minister ''appreciating the work done by him and asking him not to act in haste.'' Meanwhile, the Congress, whose state unit had sought the dismissal of the minority Kumaraswamy government, said it would come to power with absolute majority in Karnataka on the wave of tremendous goodwill created by the leadership of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Dr Singh.

''The Indian National Congress would like to reaffirm its commitment to secularism, development and social justice and halt the mis-rule, mis-governance and saga of corruption both by the Janata Dal (Secular) and the BJP,'' the statement said.

Mr Vadakkan said both the parties forged the ''opportunistic alliance'' 20 months ago only to gamble with the lives of the people of the state.

''Hence the alleged sympathy factor of the BJP is only a cloak to cover the frustration of loss of power from the opportunity to gobble up the benefit of power for themselves,'' he said, adding that ''The pretext of providing a Ramaraj of Gandhi's dream by the BJP is an irony of the situation.'' On the plea of secularism by the JD(S), Mr Vadakkan said: ''It is again a cover of desperation and opportunistic policy.'' He said the JD(S) embraced the saffron party, after breaking its alliance with the Congress, absolutely with a mutual chord of thirst for power.

''In the course of their administration, information technology of Bangalore came for a hit and number of IT companies started migrating from Karnataka,'' the statement said, alleging that ''Parties in the government tried to extract illegal gratification from the economic boom to the detriment of governance.''

UNI