Bengaluru, (DHNS): JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda on Saturday said it is difficult for a Vokkaliga to become the chief minister because members of the community are treated as second-class citizens.

Gowda made these remarks at the silver jubilee celebration of the Krishik Sarvodaya Foundation, where he shared the stage with Energy Minister D K Shivakumar, BJP leader R Ashoka and Adichunchanagiri Mutt seer Nirmalanandanatha Swami.

“Shivakumar, Ashoka or Kumaraswamy (state JD-S president) - let any of them become chief minister if it is in their fate. But it is not easy. I am saying this from personal experience. They won’t let us become first-class citizens,” Gowda said, implicitly suggesting to Shivakumar, also a Vokkaliga, that he will not have it easy in the Congress. Shivakumar was seen smiling with folded hands through Gowda’s remarks.

“When I launched some schemes, other communities branded me as pro-Vokkaliga. I have faced this punishment throughout my political career. Now, I am in the last leg of my life and I am pondering on the direction in which the Vokkaliga community is headed. I am concerned about two crore people living in the Cauvery belt. I don’t know if the Cauvery problem will be resolved. But let us try together,” Gowda said.

Praising the former prime minister, Shivakumar said Gowda had suffered much in his 50-year political life. “I have been in politics for 30 years and have suffered many wounds,” he said. “But I can’t afford to be as open as Gowda.”