Mangalore, June 28: After receiving the rap from all sides, including his party, for taking his personal and political battles to the gods, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa said he did not pray to Lord Manjunatha for himself, but for the state’s prosperity. At Monday’s high profile truth test at Dharmasthala, Yeddyurappa’s beta noire H D Kumaraswamy, however, took the opportunity to take on his rival.
He called him names and prayed to the presiding deity to “teach a befitting lesson to those who meddle with lives of the poor”. Later, at a rally in Ujire, he lashed out at the CM, describing him as vachana brashta (welsher).
The Chief Minister left for the temple at the auspicious hour of 9.04 am from the guest house in a bus crammed with over 45 MLA, former MLAs and MPs and left for Subrahmanya at 12.30 pm. “He spent over an hour at the temple and offered rudrabhisheka pooja,” Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr D Veerendra Heggade said.
Kumaraswamy arrived two hours behind schedule at around 12.30 pm.
He accused Yeddyurappa of mixing politics with religion by inviting him to the oath and chided him for skipping it. He told reporters that in his prayers to Lord Manjunatheshwara he declared that the information about the CM was “completely true”. After the Dharmasthala episode, the tag of “promise breaker” now sticks to Yeddyurappa, he said.
Reading from his letter sent to Heggade, he said the CM through advertisements had claimed he refused the Chief Minister’s post during the coalition government because the JD(S) was not ready to share good portfolios with BJP MLAs.
–Agencies