Defeat in bastions shocks JD(S)

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: A poor show by the Janata Dal (Secular) was expected in the Council polls but the fact that it could win only two of the six seats it contested of the total 25 seats in the Council polls, goes to show that the party has a lot of soul searching to do before the 2023 Assembly polls.

The party’s victory in Hassan, where Suraj Revanna, son of former minister H.D.Revanna and grandson of former PM, H.D.Deve Gowda, had contested on the JD(S) ticket, was expected and so was the victory in Mysuru , another Vokkaliga dominated bastion of the JD(S). But the fact that it lost in other Vokkaliga dominated districts like Mandya, Kolar and Tumakuru which it had won in the 2015 Council polls, goes to show a decline in the JD(S) vote bank. Or have JD(S) voters backed the BJP in places where they did not stand a chance of victory, as part of a tacit arrangement with the saffronists?

Former CM and JD(S) leader, H.D.Kumaraswamy had said that though his party was contesting only six seats in the Council polls, their target was 123 seats in the 2023 Assembly polls. Despite winning all eight Assembly seats in Mandya in 2018, sitting JD(S) MLC, Appajigowda lost to Dinesh Guligowda of the Congress who entered the Mandya fray at the last minute, after quitting as special officer to Co-operation and Mysuru District-In-Charge Minister S.T. Somashekar, once a Congress MLA from Yesvantpur.

The JD(S), a regional party which was once a force to reckon with in many districts of Karnataka, is obviously losing its clout in Vokkaliga dominated South Karnataka. Almost all former, defeated and sitting JD(S) MLAs are planning to jump ship. A few of them have already made public their intentions of joining the Congress like Chamundeshwari MLA G.T.Deve Gowda and Tumakuru MLA Srinivas. A former MLA from Navalgund, N.H.Konareddy joined the Congress in Belagavi on Tuesday.

The JD(S) would have won only one seat if it had not fielded Suraj Revanna from Hassan, a strong fortress of the Deve Gowda family. In the Lok Sabha polls held in 2019, Prajwal Revanna was the only JD(S) candidate to win from Hassan with even his grandfather suffering a drubbing at the hands of BJP candidate G.S. Basavaraju in Tumakuru.

The results of the Council polls clearly indicate that the JD(S) has to pull up its socks in the next 14-16 months by taking all existing leaders and workers into confidence, failing which it would lose its clout after the 2023 Assembly polls. The Congress has been constantly poaching on JD(S) legislators ahead of the Assembly polls.

In case of a mass exodus, the JD(S) will not be in a position to put up candidates for all the 224 Assembly constituencies in 2023.