Bengaluru, DHNS: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday invoked social reformer Basavanna, Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar and D Devaraj Urs to counter the Opposition attack on his government and claimed that it was difficult for a backward classes leader such as him to remain in power.

“Whether it is Basavanna or B R Ambedkar or D Devaraj Urs, efforts were made to suppress all those who stood for social justice and uplift of the poor. I belong to a backward class. It is difficult for a person from backward class to come to power and remain in power,” he stated while replying to the motion of thanks on the Governor’s address in the Assembly.

He, however, said he cannot become another Devaraj Urs but he will make sincere efforts to follow in his footsteps. “I don’t offer prayers to the god at home. I have never been to the pooja room. I believe that serving the poor is the right way of offering prayers to the god...I have a clean conscience. But I am not an atheist,” he claimed.

He said he did not claim that everything about his government was good. Certain anomalies might be there in the administration. And the government will make efforts to set them right and provide better administration to people, he added, rejecting the Opposition parties’ charges that the government had become ineffective and failed on all fronts. The Congress has secured the highest 46 per cent of the total votes polled in the recently held zilla and taluk panchayat polls. People have voted for the Congress, recognising the good programmes implemented by the government in the last three years. “The BJP and the JD(S) leaders have begun daydreaming about coming to power in the next Assembly polls. It is an illusion and will remain so,” he said.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the government would not resort to power cuts during the exam season. An additional 2,500 MW of power will be added to the State grid in July this year, he said. He said a direction has been issued to allocate the ground floor of the Water and Land Management Institute in Dharwad for setting up a transit campus for the Indian Institute of Technology.