The Janata Dal (Secular) leader and Minister for Higher Education G.T. Deve Gowda kicked up a controversy on Wednesday by admitting that his party workers in a few parts of Mysuru Lok Sabha constituency had voted in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
However, he soon went into a damage control mode by claiming that the JD(S) workers casting their votes in favour of BJP candidate Pratap Simha was restricted to just one village of Udbur in Chamundeshwari Assembly constituency, which is part of Mysuru Lok Sabha segment, and expressed confidence that the alliance candidate C.H. Vijayshankar from Congress will win the elections.
Speaking to reporters in Mysuru, Mr. Gowda referred to the absence of a complete understanding between the grassroots workers of the alliance partners — JD(S) and Congress. Voting in favour of the BJP candidate by people belonging to the JD(S) camp was on account of the political enmity prevailing between the two alliance partners, which had fought each other for a long time.
The JD(S) workers had supported the BJP candidate fearing for their relevance and prospects in the future polls, including gram panchayat elections, if they joined hands with the Congress, he said.
Many delays
Though the coalition government was formed in May last year after which an announcement was made to face the Lok Sabha polls jointly, the process of finalising the alliance candidate had taken a lot of time, during which the JD(S) and Congress workers were pinning hopes that it would be their party candidate in the constituency. When party leaders themselves had taken so much time to come to a consensus on the candidate, Mr. Gowda wondered how they could expect party workers at the grass-roots level to reconcile to the chosen candidate in such a short span of time.
If the alliance candidate was to be finalised much earlier, giving at least two months time for a joint campaign by the leaders of the coalition partners, coordination between the workers of the two parties would be better. “In such a scenario, we would have been able to restrict the BJP to a single digit as it was originally envisaged,” Mr. Gowda said.
BJP candidate Pratap Simha belongs to the Vokkaliga community, who constitute a significant support base of the JD(S), while the Congress candidate Mr. Vijayshankar belongs to the Kuruba community.
Mr. Gowda, who claimed that the fault lies in both the Congress and the JD(S), said there was absence of co-ordination even in the neighbouring Mandya Lok Sabha constituency, where not even a single former MLA from the Congress campaigned for the alliance candidate K. Nikhil from the JD(S).
‘My victory is certain’
Meanwhile, soon after Mr. Gowda confessed that JD(S) workers in Udbur village had voted in favour of Mr. Simha, Mr. Vijayshankar expressed surprise over his claims.
“I don’t know in what context he has made such a statement. I don’t even know if he was under any pressure to say this. It could probably be an indiscretion,” Mr. Vijayshankar said before claiming that his victory in the election was certain.
Meanwhile, Mr. Simha claimed that he had attracted votes from not just the JD(S) supporters, but also Congress supporters. He claimed that the margin of his victory will be wider this time.