Many JD(S) MLAs were poised to quit party, prompting its alliance with BJP: CM Siddaramaiah
Mandya, Feb 18: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Sunday said that former prime minister H D Deve Gowda felt compelled to form an alliance between JD(S) and the BJP because many of his MLAs were ready to quit the party.
He said a "drama" was played by the JD(S) patriarch to prevent the JD(S) from becoming "zero".
Addressing a public meeting at Malavalli in Mandya district, the chief minister reminded the audience that the JD(S) had got 37 seats in 2018 but lost 18 seats in 2023 when it won only 19 seats in the assembly elections.
"Fearing that they will be 'zero', they forged an alliance with the BJP because many JD(S) MLAs were ready to quit their party. To stop them, Deve Gowda staged the drama [of BJP-JD(S) alliance]," he said.
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Siddaramaiah said he vividly remembers Deve Gowda once saying that he would prefer to be born as a 'Musalman' in his next birth, but today he has forged an alliance with the BJP.
"I pray to you with folded hands, please remove the word 'secular' from your party Janata Dal (Secular). You have no moral right to use the word 'secular' anymore after forming an alliance with the communal BJP," the chief minister said, targeting his remarks at the JD(S).
He appealed to the people of Mandya to vote for the Congress as it fulfilled all the five key guarantees including 'Shakti' scheme offering free bus rides to Karnataka women in non-luxury government buses anywhere in the state.
So far women in Karnataka have taken up 155 crore rides, he told people.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
