GUBBI: A secondary battle is being fought in the southern regions of the state between the
Congress and Janata Dal (S) with CM
Siddaramaiah needing to decimate the latter, if he has to come back to power.
Siddaramaiah’s harsh statements against his former mentor HD Deve Gowda and the alleged neglect of the Vokkaligas, which supports
JDS, lends credence to this strategy. “BJP will make inroads in North Karnataka. The shortfall has to be made up in the Old Mysuru region, at the cost of JDS,” a Congress leader said.
Congress leaders are worried that the CM’s moves have resulted in a Vokkaliga consolidation in Old Mysuru region that accounts for 66 seats in the 224-member assembly. While Vokkaligas in Siddaramaiah’s home district of Mysuru, like Range Gowda in CM’s constituency of Chamundeshwari, have decided to take up a war against him and support Gowda’s son HD Kumaraswamy, those in other districts are not so virulent.
“We support Kumaraswamy for the CM’s post. It has nothing to do with Siddaramaiah, we are not bothered about him,” said JDS supporter K Somashekar in Singonahalli of Gubbi in Tumakuru district. Congress leaders hope that the Vokkaliga consolidation in favour of JDS would mean that other backward castes, SC/STs and minorities in this region would support them.
“JDS had a Vokkaliga-OBC-Dalit-Muslim votebank earlier. Now JDS is left with just Vokkaligas as Siddaramaiah is weaning away the rest,” a former Congress MLA told ET. Siddaramaiah, along with Deve Gowda, had built JDS from scratch after the party split in 1999. He moved to Congress in 2006 after Gowda’s third son HD Kumaraswamy began taking control of the party.
“Since then, JDS has been a red rag for him and he sees no reason on any matter where the Gowdas are concerned,” a cabinet minister said. “The CM is a very democratic man on all issues, except JDS,” he added. JDS leaders said Siddaramaiah’s singlepoint agenda over the past five years has been to wipe out their existence. “He instigated seven of my MLAs to leave JDS and go to Congress to weaken me,” Kumaraswamy said.
Siddaramaiah has been soft on some JDS MLAs, particularly Kumaraswamy’s elder brother HD Revanna. Government sources told ET: “Any project that Revanna wanted for his constituency (Holenarsipura) or any issue that he wanted help on, the CM agreed to, all these five years.”
