Karnataka: BJP-JD(S) leaders deny reports about merger

Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa and JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy, (File)

Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the regional outfit Janata Dal (Secular) (JD (S)) on Sunday, denied merging parties amid speculation of such a possibility before the next Karnataka Assembly elections in 2023.

Speculation was rife that the two parties will join hands in February after ‘Makar Sankranti’ and that there would be a change of guard at the top by Ugadi in April, with Kumaraswamy leading it.

Dismissing the media reports as rumours, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said there is no truth in the matter. “JD-S is extending us issue-based support like removing legislative Council chairman Prathapchandra Shetty and the land reforms bill,” he said in a statement on Sunday evening. State BJP Vice President Aravind Limbavali said that he had heard of the merger reports and would try to find out more about the same.

Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Sunday said that JD(S) may extend issue-based support to the BJP in the coming days in the public interest but “will never think of political merger.” “Speculative reports about our party merging with BJP is imaginary. At the most, we may extend issue-based support to the BJP if need be in the public interest. As a party of Kannadigas with self-esteem, we will never think of a political merger,” he wrote in a tweet in Kannada.

He further tweeted: “I want to clarify that for such a party like the JD(S), the situation of committing suicide by merging itself with another party has not come. I don’t foresee such a situation gripping us in the future too.”

BJP and JD(S) had earlier formed a coalition government in 2006 with Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister and Yediyurappa as his deputy, under a power-sharing formula of 20 months each. However, it collapsed as JD(S) did not transfer power to BJP, which later went on to win the next assembly elections and form its first-ever government in the south.

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