Hubballi: Disqualified legislator and the BJP candidate for Gokak assembly seat, Ramesh Jarkiholi on Thursday spilled the beans on his grand plan to topple the previous JD(S)-Congress coalition government saying it was conceived 14 months ago soon after he was sworn in as minister in the Kumaraswamy cabinet.
Speaking at a function organised by BJP workers to felicitate him after he formally joined the party on Thursday, Mr Jarkiholi squarely blamed former minister D.K. Shivakumar and former CM Siddaramaiah for the collapse of the previous government. He revealed that he had met B.S. Yediyurappa at that time to chalk out the strategy to topple the government adding that BJP president Amit Shah had given the green signal for this after he met him in Hyderabad.
Dwelling on the situation in the Congress then, Mr Jarkiholi said Mr. Shivakumar was in full control of the party adding that Siddaramaiah was totally sidelined when the coalition government was formed last year. He said he continued his efforts to bring down the coalition government despite Yediyurappa and Jagadish Shettar not being optimistic about it after the failure of Operation Lotus 7-8 times.
According to Ramesh Jarkiholi, Siddaramaiah wanted to finish off the Jarkiholi family politically and so first appointed him as minister and then dropped him
in three months after his fight with his brother Satish. He said he will file his nomination papers on Monday.
Meanwhile, the war of words between the Jarkiholi brothers intensified with Ramesh asserting that he will not treat his probable rival from the Congress, Lakhan, as his brother until the election on December 5. He alleged that Lakhan had backstabbed him by hatching a conspiracy with Congress leader Satish Jarkiholi.
Hitting back, Mr Satish termed Mr Ramesh as an opportunist and said, “The victory of Lakhan is our prime objective. The whole of Belagavi district has fallen prey to the conspiracy of Mr Ramesh. The Congress will give ticket to Lakhan and it may be announced any time,” he said.
