'IT MAY BE MY LAST SPEECH'

'IT MAY BE MY LAST SPEECH'
New Delhi, DHNS:
JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Monday surprised the House when he said during his speech on the President's rule in Karnataka that that could be his last speech in Parliament.


As he was frequently interrupted by BJP members, the former PM said: “Please allow me to speak. It may be my last speech.”

This prompted LS Speaker Somnath Chatterjee to quip: “No, no, I will keep you detained here.”

The commotion in the House also prompted Parliamentary Affairs Minister P R Dasmunsi to jump to Gowda’s defence. Gowda also sought permission to speak from a rear row referring to a newspaper article calling him a “back bencher-turned betrayer”.

“Please find from the records what the opposition members have said about this gentleman. He has the right to defend,” Dasmunsi said.

But Gowda was not done. “Media is so hostile to me. It has been hostile to me since last 25 years. I have survived not by the mercy of anybody but by the mercy of people,” he said.

As the BJP interrupted his speech, he shot back at them: “You can’t so easily digest Gowda… I will go back to (the) people of Karnataka, you also come. It is not easy to destroy Gowda...”

‘Ananth eyed gaddi’

Dasmunsi, interestingly, took a dig at BJP’s Ananth Kumar. “Kumar wanted to be chief minister. He did not want Yediyurappa to continue”.

To this, Ananth Kumar shot back: “The BJP in Karnataka is united and stood like a rock behind its leader, B S Yeddyurappa”.