JD(S) rallies to woo Muslims; seeks to clear doubts about its secular credentials

Bangalore, July 16: Targeting ruling BJP and Congress and with an eye on assembly polls next year, JDS today sought to clear doubts about its secular credentials after it formed a coalition government in Karnataka with BJP in 2006.

Addressing a Muslim Convention, organised by JDS, party supremo and former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda said his son H D Kumaraswamy committed a mistake by forming the government with BJP. Kumaraswamy committed the mistake of forming government with BJP as the Congress attempted to divide JDS, Gowda said. "I am not after a chief minister's or any other post. Fighting for secular credentials is important for me than vouching for power," he said.

He described the day as the day of 'shapa vimochane' (redemption from curse) and asked Muslims and their religious heads, who were on stage in large numbers, to 'bless' his son and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy.

Mr. Gowda said that he had advised his son 'never to betray trust'. The octogenarian politicians said that he now has no further ambition except to ensure that the secular base of his party does not collapse.

Gowda slammed the BJP government for not appointing a member from minority community in the Karnataka Public Service Commission. Gowda said during his tenure as the chief minister, he took the decision to introduce four per cent reservation for minorities in government jobs.

He said his family did not appease Vokkaliga community alone when he was chief minister, but had given five per cent reservation for Lingayat community. "I gave four per cent reservation for Vokkaliga," he said.

Gowda said his party had come to the rescue of the minority people whenever they were in trouble and had written to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to conduct an inquiry into the Sabarmati Express tragedy.

Kumaraswamy said he took several measures to protect the interests of Muslims even after joining hands with BJP. He said that some parties and individuals were projecting the youth in the Muslim community as fundamentalists and made no honest efforts to give the community its due in education and employment. It was an organised ploy to keep the community out of the mainstream and the Muslims should not fall for vote-bank politics, he said.

He sought to emphasise that it was a decision that his father was always opposed to and hurt by.

MLA and JDS leader Zammer Ahmed Khan, the main organiser of the event at Palace rounds, described Mr. Kumaraswamy as 'the future chief minister' and appealed to Muslims not trust the Congress which had 'betrayed' them repeatedly.

He alleged that Congress were misleading Muslims and using them as vote bank.