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Mandya (Karnataka):
JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy has said that he is sincerely committed to the better prospects of the NDA in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls and that the continuation of the alliance with the BJP, after the Assembly elections, will depend on how his party and its leaders are treated.
The former Chief Minister further said that if given an opportunity and if Prime Minister Narendra Modi has confidence in him, he wants to become Agriculture Minister, in case the NDA comes back to power at the Centre.
In an exclusive interview with PTI Videos after filing his nomination from Mandya on Thursday, the JD(S) state president said, “Being part of the NDA depends on how our party leaders are treated in future . We work sincerely and We want a long-term relationship with the BJP. But ultimately we will make a decision depending on how we are treated and how much respect we get from the BJP.”
JD(S), led by former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda, joined the BJP-led NDA in September last year.
As part of the seat-sharing agreement, the BJP would contest in 25 constituencies and the JD(S) in the remaining three – Mandya, Hassan and Kolar – in Karnataka.
Mr Kumaraswamy, son of Gowda, made no secret of his desire to become the Union Agriculture Minister.
“It is not just the aspirations of the people of Mandya to see me as a union minister, even my BJP friends feel that it will be good for the state if I become a minister. I have an agricultural background and if I get the chance, I want to do that. be Minister of Agriculture and bring a good name to the government. “If the Prime Minister believes that I can do a good job and if I get an opportunity, I want to work in the agriculture sector,” he said.
The JD(S) leader, an MLA from Channapatna in neighboring Ramanagara district, said he was under intense pressure from the people of Mandya to contest from there.
“We have entered into an alliance with the BJP to fight for better prospects for Karnataka and not for political survival. It will be mutually beneficial for both the BJP and the JD(S). The Congress took advantage of the divided votes between us in the last Assembly elections, we realized the mistake and decided to fight against the Congress together,” he said.
Mr Kumaraswamy said the BJP is the “natural ally” of JD(S) and not the Congress. He said his party has always fought against the grand old party for the past fifty years.
“Our last alliance with the BJP (for 20 months from January 2006), when I was the Prime Minister, was a good period and due to a misunderstanding and some misdeeds by miscreants, we had to part ways,” he said, adding that the leaders of the parties and cadres now work sincerely for each other.
“This time there is a lot of positivity, energy and synergy between us. Be it (BS) Yediyurappa (BJP veteran) or Deve Gowda (JDS patriarch) or any of us. We are all working for each other to see that the NDA alliance gets all 28 seats in Karnataka,” he added.
Mr. Kumaraswamy also said that the Congress in Karnataka had thrown the state’s finances into disarray due to the guarantee schemes and that the government has no money for capital expenditure or development.
“After mismanaging the finances, they are now pointing fingers at the Center over the discrepancy in refund of GST and other subsidies,” he alleged.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by WhatsNew2Day staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)