Janata Dal (S) State president A.H. Vishwanath on Thursday said talks on seat-sharing for 2019 had already begun between the coalition partners.

“The parties have almost completed talks on seat-sharing,” he said at a press conference here. He reiterated that the Congress and the JD(S) would fight the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the State together, as they were doing in the byelections. The aim is to defeat communal forces and bring a secular government to the Centre, he said.

“The leaders have discussed the seats the parties were supposed to contest from,” he said. Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda had also spoken on this issue as the rationale was to stop the communal forces.

Mr. Vishwanath expressed confidence that the coalition partners would romp to victory comfortably in the November 3 byelections to three Lok Sabha and two Assembly seats.

Different shawls

Mr. Vishwanath said the green shawl (referring to farmers and the Raitha Sangha) would never go with the saffron shawl (referring to the BJP). On that party’s efforts to woo farmers in Mandya, he said: “BJP leaders are now paying tribute to farmers’ leader K.S. Puttannaiah and visiting his samadhi. They did nothing when his family was in grief after his demise. This has exposed the BJP and its theatrics.”

He also said he has spoken to the leaders of the Kuruba community in K.R. Nagar, who had threatened to boycott polling in Mandya over their “disappointment” with the sitting MLA and Minister for Tourism and Sericulture, S.R. Mahesh.

“Such an action will be seen as anti-democratic. The community won’t boycott the bypoll just because some people give the call,” he said. Mr. Vishwanath, a Kuruba leader, hails from K.R. Nagar and represented the constituency in the Assembly.