Speak on Yeddyurappa govt for 15 minutes: Siddaramaiah's counter-challenge to Modi

A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi challenged Congress president Rahul Gandhi to speak for 15 minutes "without reading from a paper", there was a comeback - from Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The CM tweeted a counter-challenge asking PM Modi if he could speak on the achievements of the former Yeddyurappa government in Karnataka for 15 minutes "by looking at a paper".

If in the first case Modi was questioning Gandhi's working knowledge on what the Congress government did in Karnataka, in the second instance Siddaramaiah's reference was to a bit of history the BJP would like to forget.


BS Yeddyurappa, BJP's chief ministerial face, had a stormy innings as CM when BJP came to power in Karnataka in 2008. He was indicted in a mining scam by the state Lokayuktha, was forced to step down by the party leadership, left the party in a huff and floated his own outfit damaging BJP's chances in 2013, before returning "unconditionally" ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.


On Tuesday, Modi mocked Gandhi at an election rally in Santhemarahalli in Chamarajanagar district."Can he speak in any language, in Hindi, English or his mother’s language and identify the achievements of his party’s government here (in Karnataka), without reading from a paper?" he asked.

This is the second instance over the last two days when Siddaramaiah tweeted in his party chief's defence, the first beign when Modi attacked Gandhi for "showing disrespect" to former prime minister and JD(S) supremo Deve Gowda.