Lok Sabha elections 2019: Rahul Gandhi, Deve Gowda meet in Delhi to discuss seat-share in Karnataka

Bengaluru, Mar 06: Congress president Rahul Gandhi arrived at the residence of former Prime Minister and Janata Dal (S) leader HD Deve Gowda to discuss the issue of seat-sharing in Karnataka for the coming Lok Sabha elections.

The coalition partners have made it clear that they will contest the election together and the biggest challenge now is to decide to arrive at the numbers and which party gets which seat.

The JD(S) is demanding 12 of 28 Lok Sabha seats in the state and at least eight of them are in this region. The Congress, however, wants to give it less than 10 seats.

Besides Mandya and Hassan (represented in the present Lok Sabha by the JD-S) the party has also sought that its candidates be allowed to contest from Mysore, Chikkaballapur, Tumkur among others.

While the JD(S) is keen to field Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Gowda from Mandya, the wife of Kannada superstar Ambareesh, Sumalathaa, too, wants to contest the seat on Congress ticket.

Congress MLA from Chincholi Umesh Jadhav met Karnataka Legislative Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar and submitted his resignation letter.

The resignation is not likely to alter the party position on the Floor. Jadhav, a two-time MLA, reportedly quit the seat over the denial of ministerial berth during the Cabinet expansion in December.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress won nine seats, the JD(S) two and the BJP won 17 seats.