Veerappa Moily hits out at HD Kumaraswamy, says lack of ministers' interest in working on ground led to election defeat in Karnataka

Bengaluru: Amidst turmoil in the Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka, senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Saturday hit out at Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy over his ‘village stay’ programme. “Simply sitting after becoming a chief minister or minister does not work. It is important to concentrate on schemes and their implementation. Chief ministers and ministers roaming villages does not work,” Moily said. [caption id=“attachment_1562565” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Congress leader Veerappa Moily. PTI[/caption] As part of his ‘Grama Vaastavya’ or ‘village stay’ programme, Kumaraswamy had, on Friday, spent the night at the Government Higher Primary School in Chandraki village along with other ministers. He was seen sleeping on the floor. “Ministers should be responsible for people. They should think about it. Governance should go to people…not only chief minister or ministers… Simply going to the people does not work,” said the former Union minister, targeting Kumaraswamy. Analysing Congress-JDS alliance’s major drubbing in the state in recent Lok Sabha elections, Moily said the lack of interest of ministers in working on ground is one of the main reasons for the loss in the general election. “Government is not working responsibly and I think that is one of the reasons for the defeat in the election. They (CM and ministers) should realise that they should call a cabinet meeting to discuss it. They should discuss the debacle.. but I do not think these people (Congress-JDS) are thinking about it seriously,” he said. In Karnataka, the BJP had won 25 of the 28 seats along with an Independent backed by it, leaving just one seat each to the Congress and JD(S). BJP is the single largest party with 105 members in the 225 member Karnataka Assembly, while the ruling coalition has 117 members with 79 legislators from Congress, 37 from JD(S) and 1 from BSP.