H D Kumaraswamy will be ex-CM on Thursday: DV Sadananda Gowda

BENGALURU: HD Kumaraswamy will be out of the chief minister’s post by Friday morning, senior BJP leader DV Sadananda Gowda claimed on Wednesday, indicating that a BJP victory in the Lok Sabha elections would trigger a change of government in Karnataka.
Gowda, who led the ministry of statistics and programme implementation in the Modi government, was confident of his own chances in the elections, saying he would retain the Bengaluru North seat and continue being a Cabinet member.
Gowda offered the bleak assessment on Kumaraswamy, and the JD(S)-Congress government he leads in Karnataka, while commenting on Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu’s visit to Bengaluru on Tuesday. Naidu, who has been holding discussions with opposition leaders across the country to cement a grand alliance, met JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy.
Naidu staring at defeat
Gowda said Naidu was starting at defeat in Andhra Pradesh, where assembly polls were held along with the Lok Sabha elections, and he was hopscotching around states as he had no other work in his finals days as the CM.
On the situation in Karnataka after the Lok Sabha election results are announced, he said: “Like-minded people flock together. As is the case of Naidu, so is the case of HD Kumaraswamy. He also knows that by Thursday night he will have to vacate the chief minister’s post. If not then, it will be latest by Friday morning, considering he will be struggling the entire night to come to terms with the election results.”