PM takes a dig at Gowda

PM takes a dig at Gowda

Asks him not to pit Bangalore against Karnataka

Daily News and Analysis


Karnataka strongman H D Deve Gowda would have squirmed if he had heard what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to say on Saturday.

Delivering an indirect rebuke to Gowda and his two sons, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and PWD minister H D Revanna, Singh said that the development debate in Karnataka should not pit Bangalore against the rest of the state or create an urban versus rural conflict.

"Along with Bangalore's development, we must also work for Karnataka's development. I do not see any contradiction between the two. Some try to divide our people by pitting one against another in the development debate. This is wrong," Singh said after laying the foundation stone for "Namma (Our) Metro" in the tech hub.
The absence of Gowda, who was to preside over the function, was conspicuous.

Singh's diatribe comes three days after his attack on "corruption in municipal administration and stranglehold of mafia" in Mumbai that embarrassed chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

The former Prime Minister had opposed the Bangalore Metro project and instead favoured rival Mono Rail, besides accusing tech firms like Infosys and Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE), the promoters of an expressway between the tech hub and Mysore for "grabbing farmers land".

Gowda maintains a pro-farmer, "son of the soil" image and often criticised the IT sector for creating a lopsided development in Bangalore.

Kumaraswamy shelved plans of a bill to take over the expressway project, after his five-month coalition with the BJP came to a brink of collapse this month when BJP leaders opposed the move. But he made his elder brother Revanna the PWD minister early this week. PWD has control on road development in the state.

Despite their claims of not hindering development, the trio raised their voices against the Metro, the tech sector and the expressway. In fact, Kumaraswamy replaced the then Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) Chairman K N Srivastava abruptly just before the project got the Centre's approval in March.

However, on Saturday he promised "autonomy" to the BMRCL management to expeditiously complete the project.
"Some people wrongly pose the question of development as a conflict between city and village. This is a false notion. No country can develop if its villages do not develop," Prime Minister Singh said on Saturday.
He said when the country aims to modernise and become a knowledge economy, it must benefit the cities and the villages. "And it can. Roads and highways are the means to achieve it," Singh said.

The PM appreciated the "warmth and gentle hospitality" of Kannada people, who have contributed to the success of the IT sector, but in the backdrop of the tiff between Gowda and Infosys Chairman N R Narayana Murthy, advised the government to "jealously preserve this great asset — your hospitality".