BENGALURU: There will be no more discussions on seat sharing between JD(S) and Congress at the state level for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda in New Delhi on Wednesday officially put an end to discussions among state leaders. The contention over at least three seats — Chikkaballapur, Mysuru and Tumakuru — and the inability of the state leaders to arrive at a consensus has now led to the top leadership of both parties to take up the issue.

Rahul visited Gowda’s residence as part of his outreach to senior leaders of all Congress allies for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls. The meeting that lasted two hours saw the two leaders discussing extensively about the current political situation and the need to keep a strong alliance going as well as the seat-sharing deadlock in Karnataka.

“The national presidents of both parties have decided that I, on behalf of JD(S), and K C Venugopal, on behalf of Congress, will hold discussions henceforth. No discussions will take place either at the state level or between the presidents of both parties,” JD(S) national secretary general Kunwar Danish Ali told The New Indian Express.

Both leaders are expected to go over all of the 28 seats one by one to decide on the specific number of seats that will be shared. The state leadership of both parties, including coordination committee chief Siddaramaiah and Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy, were supposed to hold at least three rounds of discussion to finalise the number of seats and most of the constituencies under the seat-sharing pact and only then take it to the central leadership. But after just one day’s discussion, the talks have been escalated to the high command.

The JD(S) willing to settle for 10 seats from the initial bargain of 12 seats seems to be the only solace for Congress as of now. “Out of 28 seats, I have sought 10 seats. The final call will be taken by Rahul Gandhi after his discussions with Venugopal and Danish Ali,” said H D Deve Gowda. Even as the Congress is adamant on not letting go of any seats where it has sitting MPs, sources suggested that Gowda has sought Chikkaballapur and Tumakuru seats.

“We have a very strong candidate in Tumakuru. That is not open for negotiation. Talks can be held over
Chikkaballapur purely on winnability basis. We will also hold talks over Mysuru. Negotiating with JD(S) should ideally not be a challenge,” said a Congress leader.

The Congress will hold its screening committee meeting in New Delhi on March 11 and some clarity on its seat-sharing formula in Karnataka is expected to shape up by then.

Two outsiders, but with sound knowledge of the state — Danish Ali and Venugopal — will hold talks on behalf of their respective parties and intend to wrap up the process of seat sharing in Karnataka within the next four days since they have to concentrate on their own election campaigns.