HDK loyalists quit JDS in protest against ticket for GTD

MYSURU: Even as JDS senior leader HD Kumaraswamy has embarked on the Pancharatna Yatra to mobilise support ahead of the Assembly elections, the party in Mysuru and Chamundeshwari constituency received a major jolt with senior party functionaries and prominent leaders resigning from the party’s primary membership in protest against party’s rebel MLA GT Devegowda’s leadership.

The resigned rebel leaders and workers, who are said to be not happy with the party’s decision to let Devegowda contest from the Chamundeshwari constituency, held a show of strength, Swabhimana Karyakartara Sabhe, and vowed to defeat the MLA in the coming Assembly election.

They lashed out at Devegowda for revolting against the party leadership earlier and dissociating with party workers for the last two years. Speakers at the meeting accused him of hobnobbing with both Congress and BJP, seeking Assembly tickets for him and his son Harish Gowda. “As he did not get any assurance from both parties, he shed crocodile tears in front of party supremo HD Deve Gowda and returned to the party,” they alleged.

Former Zilla panchayat president and Mysuru taluk JDS former president Beeregundi Basavanna said he had earlier worked for Devegowda’s victory, but despite that the MLA insulted him in public after becoming a minister in the previous JDS-Congress coalition government.

He said Devegowda worked against party candidates in previous elections and recalled that Kumaraswamy had assured party leaders from Mysuru that one among them will be the party candidate from Chamundeshwari. But now Devegowda has been picked for the seat and they feel letdown, he added.