Seven rebel JD-S MLAs who were suspended by the party are all set to join the Congress ahead of next year's Assembly elections in Karnataka.
The 7 suspended legislators today met senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and chief minister Siddharamaiah here and would meet the party vice president Rahul Gandhi tomorrow.
Zameer Ahmed Khan, who is leading the bunch, said he along with other MLAs have met the chief minister and senior Congress leaders Ahmed Patel and K Rehman Khan and would be meeting Gandhi tomorrow.
"We will try and strengthen the Congress, as it is the only secular force that we look at. The JD-S has compromised on the secular credentials by siding with the BJP and the only option we have is the Congress, which we will strengthen. We will join the Congress sometime in December," Zameer Khand told PTI.
He said they left the party only because JD-S compromised on the issue of secularism and corruption.
Senior Congress leader Rehman Khan said the seven MLAs would help boost the Congress' prospects in Karnataka which goes to polls in 2018.
"They have come out of JD-S because they support the secular policies of the Congress. They were opposed to internal policies of JD-S and because it compromised with the BJP," he said.
Asked whether the Congress would ally with the JD-S ahead of the Assembly elections, Khan, the former deputy chairman of Rajya Sabha, said, "There is least possibility of a pre-poll alliance".
Asked about the challenge that the Congress faces ahead of assembly polls, he said the problems of farmers, drought and water were some of the challenges that the state government needed to handle.
"The Congress government under Siddharamaiah is trying to tackle the problems and address it by a loan waiver.
"The central assistance on drought as expected has not come to Karnataka," he said, adding that the Siddharamaiahn government was acting as per the rulebook by fulfilling 150 of its 167 promises.
The suspended JD-S legislators were Zameer Ahmed, N Cheluvaraswamy, H C Balakrishna, Akhanda Srinivasamurthy, Iqbal Ansari, Ramesh Bandisiddegowda and Bheema Naik.
The rebel JD-S MLAs were suspended after they supported independent Rajya Sabha candidate K C Ramamurthy.
Ramamurthy, who was supported by the Congress won the Rajya Sabha seat last year with support of these MLAs.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)