Kumaraswamy sticks to Gandhi remark
April 14th, 2011 - 12:48 am ICT by IANSBangalore, April 13 (IANS) Former Karnataka Chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy reiterated Wednesday that if Mahatma Gandhi were alive today, he would have had to compromise to remain in politics or quit.
“I am not going back on my words,” the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) leader told reporters, two days after claiming he had been misquoted on the same remark made Sunday in Hubli, about 370 km from here.
His comment had been slammed by various political parties as also Gandhian and veteran social activist Anna Hazare.
Kumaraswamy had made the comment taking a dig at Hazare’s fast-unto-death protest for stronger anti-graft measures.
Hazare’s five-day fast resulted in the government agreeing to include civil society representatives in a ten-member committee to draft a stringent anti-corruption Lokpal Bill.
“If Gandhiji were to be there in present day politics, he would have either compromised or quit,” Kumaraswamy said Wednesday.
He claimed that he had cited Gandhi to highlight the fact that corruption was rampant.
Kumaraswamy had said in Hubli that in today’s circumstances it was “impossible to run a political party without (money from) corruption.”
On the proposed Lokpal Bill, he said he had doubts on how effective it would be in curbing corruption.
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Tags: anna hazare, circumstances, corruption, doubts, hubli, janata, jd, karnataka chief minister, mahatma gandhi, measures, member committee, money, political parties, protest, social activist, society representatives