Using the IT show platform, Deve Gowda launched a fresh offensive against a section of IT sector, accusing them of carrying on a 'whispering campaign' to destabilise his party's coalition government in Karnataka.

Gowda charged that a section of the tech sector started the campaign within two or three months after the coalition came to power that IT firms were leaving Bangalore because of infrastructural woes.

Gowda, who was involved in a public spat with the IT czars and specifically attacked Infosys Chairman N R Narayana Murthy last week over land allotment to IT firms, told Chief Minister N Dharam Singh sharing the dais with him to put conditions before providing land so that the displaced get jobs.

"Those who are engaged in such a campaign should realise that the state had registered an impressive growth in the last 15 months," he said, adding that the present set up could not be blamed for the accumulated problems of Bangalore.

Gowda clarified that he was not jealous of the IT sector or its employees who earned fat salaries, but there should be accountability for what they did.

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda delivering his speech as the chief guest during the inauguration of the Bangalore IT.in 2005.

Photograph: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/Getty Images

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