JD(S) fears of Op Hasta: It was the same in 1999 too

Maqsood Maniyar | NT

Bengaluru: The JD(S)’ existential crisis around 1999 has much in common with its current state when it is worried over 'attempts' by the ruling Congres to engineer defections of its MLAs.

In the 1994 Assembly elections, the erstwhile united Janata Dal was on a wave of euphoria, bagging 115 seats, two more than the magic number of 113, putting Deve Gowda firmly in the chief minister’s seat.

In the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, when the Congress couldn’t form a government on its own at the Centre, it gave outside support to the United Front (UF) coalition, agreeing on Deve Gowda as a compromise candidate for the prime minister’s post.

The JD(S)' stars were at the zenith. But by 1999, there was a split in the Janata Dal with Deve Gowda forming the Janata Dal (Secular) while late Ramakrishna Hegde and JH Patel set up the Janata Dal (United).

In the 1999 Assembly polls, JD(S) was shockingly reduced to only 10 seats while JD(U) managed 10.

The Deve Gowda-led party managed to outlive Hegde’s but not without facing a major existential crisis since then.

SM Krishna posed similar challenge

Even though the Congress bagged 132 seats in the 1999 elections, giving SM Krishna a comfortable five-year term as chief minister, they sought to engineer defections from the JD(S).

This exercise is still on and has been christened Operation Hasta (after Congress' hand party symbol), taking inspiration from the infamous Operation Kamala of 2019 which brought down the Congress-JD(S) coalition government and installed a BJP government in its place.

It is to be noted that in 1999, Krishna, a popular Vokkaliga leader had tried to poach MLAs with the help of his protégé and community member DK Shivakumar, now the Deputy CM.

Notably, the Grand Old Party was successful in getting eight of the 10 JD(S) MLAs to abandon what they thought was a sinking ship and join the Congress.

Just when everyone thought the JD(S) was finished, Siddaramaiah emerged as the outfit’s president, taking them to a high of 58 seats in 2004.

The resultant JD(S)-Congress coalition saw Dharam Singh take over the reins as CM. The rest is history with Singh toppled in a span of two years and HD Kumaraswamy becoming CM of a BJP-JD(S) coalition.

The ghost of 1999 is back to haunt JD(S) with Shivakumar and Siddaramaiah reportedly trying to engineer defection of two-thirds of JD(S) MLAs (at least 13).