Ibrahim not in touch with JD(S) leadership?

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: JD(S) state president CM Ibrahim has not been in touch with the rest of the top party leadership after the regional outfit made its alliance with the BJP official.

Party second-in-command HD Kumaraswamy confirmed the same to mediapersons. Ibrahim had refused to be candid about the pre-poll coalition between the BJP and JD(S) for next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

He had even participated in the grand JD(S) convention held at the Palace Grounds in Bengaluru on September 10, wherein both Kumaraswamy and party patriarch HD Deve Gowda had defended their alliance with the BJP.

This disclosure comes in the backdrop of several Muslim leaders quitting the JD(S) in the past week. NM Nabi, JD(S) vice president Syed Shafiullah, Mohid Altaf, youth wing president NM Noor and the party’s ex-minority wing chief Nasir Hussain Ustad have all quit the party.

JD(S)’ candidate from Chickpet in May’s Assembly polls Imran Pasha may soon join them. Meanwhile, it is being rumoured that Ibrahim may rejoin Congress.

Former MLC and spokesperson for the Grand Old Party Ramesh Babu on Thursday urged Ibrahim to come back to the Congress fold. “CM Ibrahim, you aren’t valued in the JD(S).

So come back to the Congress party. Several lawmakers, former lawmakers and ministers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the (alliance with) BJP,” Babu said, inviting him to join an “ideologically strong” Congress.

He pointed out that some JD(S) MLAs had already expressed their displeasure with the alliance with the saffron party while others had chosen to not go public with their grouses.

Most of the 19 sitting JD(S) MLAs fear that allying with the BJP will make them lose their Muslim voters in their respective constituencies and had conveyed the same to Kumaraswamy and Deve Gowda.