Mysuru: Former minister V Srinivas Prasad has said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has no moral right to speak about social justice as a few incidents in the recent past have revealed his true face.

Prasad was reacting to Siddaramaiah’s jibe that those who were advocating ideologies of B R Ambedkar and Basavanna were joining BJP, which is against social justice.

Addressing the reporters here on Tuesday, Prasad said, “Nobody is a custodian of social justice. Branding the rival party negatively is in practice for political gains. But, objectively, neither a political party nor a government of a particular party can violate the basic fundamentals of the Constitution. Secularism, equality and fight against illiteracy are enshrined in the Constitution and all are striving to achieve these benchmarks,” he said.

“As far as I know, Siddaramaiah does not even read a newspaper. So, I doubt if he has read any books of either Buddha, Basavanna or Ambedkar. So, chanting of the names of these social reformers is the height of hypocrisy. The myth of ‘him being a socialist’ was broken with the exposure of his wearing expensive watch and sunglasses. The mask of him being a rational was exposed when he changed his car after a crow sat, considering it a bad omen. As soon as the helicopter, in which his family members were supposed to travel, caught fire, he landed in Tirupati, a clear case of superstition,” Prasad said.

“Siddaramaiah describes the BJP as a Hindutva party. Has he not mentioned his religion as ‘Hindu’ in the Census? He speaks about suppression of Dalits by the opposition parties, but why did he not speak up for the Dalit midday meals cooks of Kuppegala school, which is under his own Varuna Assembly constituency and is in the same Gram Panchayat as his native Siddaramanahundi?” he questioned.

Stating that his condition to the BJP was that he would not compromise on his self-respect, Prasad admitted that the BJP too should change. “Sweeping the streets was restricted only to the people of the deprived classes. By promoting Swachh Bharat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made people of all castes and classes wield the broom. A process of physical ‘swachatha’ has begun, the next phase will be ‘mental swachatha’,” he said.

“Ambedkar was neither a leftist nor a rightist, but a humanist. He was a severe critic of the Left and had cautioned that it was like wildfire. The world knows how the Congress ill-treated Ambedkar. I have not taken the decision to join the BJP on my own. The voters of Nanjangud had given me a mandate for five years. If I have resigned now, I am answerable to the voters. So, I held three ‘Swabhimani Saaveshas’ to get the opinion of my fans, supporters and well-wishers. It is they who decided that I should join the BJP to give a fitting reply to the Congress, whose leader Siddaramaiah humiliated me at a time when I was expecting a honourable retirement from electoral politics,” he said.