Wish JD(S) luck, says Shivakumar on BJP alliance

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar on Friday tried to downplay the purported alliance between the JD(S) and BJP but asked the former if they’d be able to maintain their ideology after the tie-up with the saffron party.

To express how little he feared the alliance, he simply wished JD(S) the best and wondered aloud if it would prove enough to save their party.

The comments come in the backdrop of JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda flying to New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and reiterating the demand for five Lok Sabha seats out of a possible 28 in a seat sharing arrangement namely Bengaluru Rural, Mandya, Hassan, Tumakuru and Chikkaballapur.

“I hope they flourish. I wish them luck,” Shivakumar said of the alliance. “Let them take a call for the sake of their survival and future but I’m curious as to what will happen to their ideology,” he added, pointing out that HD Deve Gowda had built the party on secular and socialist ideals while BJP was a right wing party that had been hostile to the idea of India as a secular state and saw the country as an essentially Hindu nation.

“I don’t know what will happen to their current and former MLAs,” Shivakumar said, a sly at sitting JD(S) MLAs who were opposed to an alliance with the BJP because of the fear that their Muslim voters in their respective constituencies will abandon them.

Deve Gowda had earlier assured them that he won’t ally with the BJP, even announcing to the media that JD(S) would go it alone in the Lok Sabha elections.

The Karnataka Congress CM also took a dig at fellow Vokkaliga rivals: BJP MLC CP Yogeshwar and JD(S) legislature party leader HD Kumaraswamy, who themselves have gone up against each other in Channapattna Assembly constituency twice.

The JD(S) bigwig bested Yogeshwar both times.

No coalition with them: DKS

Shivakumar also ruled out an alliance with the JD(S). “We have experience of a tie-up with the JD(S). There will be no alliance between the Congress and JD(S) for any reason,” he said.

Kumaraswamy has been furious with Shivakumar and CM Siddaramaiah because the duo are reportedly trying to engineer defections of 13 of the 19 JD(S) MLAs so as to avoid disqualification under the anti-defection law and claim the party symbol.