Clearing the rumors over the continuity of the Congress-JD(S) alliance in Karnataka, JD-S leader, and former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda announced that his party will contest the elections alone.
The leader while talking to the media said that if the state will go to mind-term polls in the upcoming year, JD-S will contest solo. The leader clearly stated that his party will not go for any alliance.
Previously, the Congress party and JD-S had tied up in an alliance after last year’s Karnataka assembly polls. After coming to power, HD Kumaraswamy was made the Chief Minister of Karnataka. Even with just 37 seats, JD-S (Janata Dal-Secular) got the stronghold in the alliance. HD Deve Gowda called the decision of making HD Kumaraswamy the CM as “wrong“.
But soon after the collapse of his government, the blame game began between the two factions of the alliance. HD Kumaraswamy’s government collapsed due to the absence of defection of its 17 legislators during the trust vote. This gave an easy way for Bhartiya Janta Party to come to power in the state.
War of words started brewing out in public between HD Deve Gowda and Siddaramaiah over the responsibility of government collapse in the state. Gowda had previously said that he would go for an alliance of national party interim president Sonia Gandhi decides so.
Siddaramaiah had called the allegations of HD Deve Gowda as baseless and politically motivated. He also slammed the JD-S supremo for not letting anyone else grow in the party. Siddaramaiah was previously in JD-S until he was expelled from the party in 2004 for his “anti-party” activities. This created a distance between the two leaders.
In a surprising twist, Gowda has asked his party members to spread the message of “good work” done by HD Kumaraswamy government. The leader is also expected to conduct a state to strengthen the base of the party.