Congress plans ‘Operation Hastha’ to poach disgruntled JDS lawmakers

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: With a section of Janata Dal (Secular) lawmakers opposed to their party cosying up to the BJP in the State, the ruling Congress party has raised its antenna to woo disgruntled JDS MLAs.

Highly-placed sources told News Trail that off the 19 JDS legislators, 9-10 of them are against having any tie-up with the saffron party, and they are learned to have openly expressed this in a meeting convened by former Prime Minister and party supremo HD Deve Gowda in Bengaluru three days ago.

Some of them are ready to go with the Congress rather than being aligned with the BJP ahead of the ZP/TP, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike and the crucial Lok Sabha polls.

They fear that having maintained a secular image all these years by keeping both the Congress and BJP away, the sudden hobnobbing with the latter would make traditional voters switch over to other parties.

Sources claim that KPCC President and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar is said to have sent feelers to those JDS legislators who are against any kind of association with the BJP, so is trying to convince them to join the Congress party, promising them that they would be well taken care of with their poll expenses paid and posts of chairmen in important boards and corporations.

Through this, the Congress leaders want to eliminate the JDS from the political map of Karnataka. The strength of the JDS came down from 40 seats in 2013 and 2013 Assembly polls, to 19 seats in the recently held elections.

The Congress aims to bring the JDS numbers to a single digit. This seems to be the wish of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah who still nurses anger against Deve Gowda for denying him the CM’s post to offer it to his son Kumaraswamy.

For that reason, the Kuruba leader quit the party, formed AIJDP, and finally joined the Congress where he became the CM twice. JDS MLAs targeted by the Congress are not averse to joining the party due to a steady decline in the popularity of the once parallel party to both national parties.

Over the years, the party has lost its popularity due to changing ideology and principles for the sake of power. Naturally, almost all its leaders deserted the party.

While a majority of them joined the Congress, a few embraced the BJP. Due to this, the JDS lawmakers are weighing their options of being in the party and joining the Congress. It involves a lot of risk as defeat in bypolls would end their political career and become as happened to several leaders.

As the new government has just completed two months, it may take some more time for the unhappy JDS lawmakers to wait for the results of the ZP/TP and BBMP polls and then take a decision. But the Congress party will not lie low.

It will continue its ‘Operation Hastha’ to try and poach JDS legislators.